Cbc  ^totp  of  tfte  JSations 


THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS. 


1.  ROME.       By      ARTHUR     GiLMAN. 

M.A. 

2.  THE   JEWS.       By    Prof.    J.    K. 

HOSMER. 

3.  GERMANY.     By  Rev.  S.  Baring- 

GouLD.  M.A. 

4.  CARTHAGE.      By  Prof.  ALFRED 

J.  Church. 

5.  ALEXANDER'S    EMPIRE.      By 

Prof.  I.  P.  Mahaffy. 

6.  THE    MOORS   IN   SPAIN.      By 

Stanley  Lane-Poole. 

7.  ANCIENT    EGYPT.      By    Prof. 

George  Kawlinson. 

8.  HUNGARY.     By  Prof.  Arminius 

VAMbf.RY. 

9.  THE  BARACENS.    By  Arthur 

GiLMAN,  M.A. 

ro.  IRELAND.    By  the  Hon.  Emily 

Lawless. 
IL  CHALDEA. 

Ragozin. 

12.  THE  GOTHS. 

LEY. 

13.  ASSYRIA.     By  Z6naide  A.  Ra- 

gozin. 

14.  TURKEY.    By  Stanley  Lane- 

Poole. 

15.  HOLLAND.        By    Prof. 

Thokold  Rogers. 

16.  MEDLEVAL      FRANCE.        By 

GUSTAVE   MASSON. 

17.  PERSIA.      By   S.    G.    W.    Ben- 

jamin. 

18.  PHOENICIA.        By    Prof.    Geo. 

Rawlinson. 

19.  MEDIA.      By    Zenaide   A.    Ra- 

gozin. 

20.  THE     HANSA    TOWNS.        By 

Helen  Zimmern. 

21.  EARLY    BRITAIN.      By     Prof. 

Alfred  I.  Church. 

22.  THE     BARBARY     CORSAIRS. 

Bv  Stanley  Lane-Poole. 

23.  RUSSIA.  Bv  W.  R.  MORFiLL.  M.A. 

24.  THE      JEWS      UNDER      THE 

ROMANS.  BvW.  D.  Morrison. 

25.  SCOTLAND.    By  John  Mackin- 

tosh, LL.D. 

26.  SWITZERLAND.     By  Mrs.  LiNA 

Hug  and  R.  STEAD. 

27.  MEXICO.     By  SUSAN  HALE. 

28.  PORTUGAL.         By     H.     MORSE 

Stephens. 

29.  THE    NORMANS.      By    Sarah 

Orne  Jewett. 


By     ZenaIde     a. 
By  Henry  Brad- 


J.    E. 


30.  THE     BYZANTINE     EMPIRE. 

Bv  C.  W.  C.  Oman. 

31.  SICILY:   Phcenician,  Greek  and 

Roman.     By  the  Late   Prof.  E. 
A.  Freeman. 

32.  THE     TUSCAN      REPUBLICS. 

Bv  Bella  Duffy. 

33.  POLAND.    By  W.  R.  Morfill, 

M.A. 

34.  PARTHIA.      By  Prof.   George 

Rawlinson. 

3>  AUSTRALIAN  COMMON- 
WEALTH. By  Greville 
Tregarthen. 

36.  SPAIN.     By  H.  E.  Watts. 

37-  JAPAN.  By  David  Murray. 
Ph.D. 

38.  SOUTH  AFRICA.     By  George 

M.  Theal. 

39.  VENICE.     Bv  Alethea  Wiel. 

40.  THE     CRUSADES.      By    T.    A. 

Archer  and  C.  L.  Kingsford. 

41.  VEDIC    INDIA.     By  Z.   A.    Ra- 

gozin. 

42.  WEST  INDIES  and  the  SPANISH 

MAIN.     By  James  Rodwav. 

43.  BOHEMIA.       By  C.   Edmund 

Maurice.  [M.A. 

44.  THE  BALKANS.  BvW.  Miller. 

45.  CANADA.      By  Sir  J.  G.  BOURI- 

NOT,  LL.D. 

46.  BRITISH    INDIA.      By   R.  W. 

Frazer,  LL.B. 

47.  MODERN  FRANCE.    By  Andre- 

Le  Bon. 

48.  THE  FRANKS.    By  Lewis  Ser- 

geant. 

49.  AUSTRIA.     By  Sidney  Whit- 

man 

50.  MODERN    ENGLAND.      Before 

the   Reform    BilL     By  Justin 
McCarthy. 

51.  CHINA.  Bv  Prof.  R.  K.  Douglas. 

52.  MODERN  ENGLAND.    From  the 

Reform     Bill    to    the     Present 
i  Time.    Bv  Justin  McCarthy. 

I    ss.  MODERN  SPAIN.     By  Martin 
i  A.  S.  Hume. 

I    ^4.  MODERN  ITALY.     By   Pietro 

;  ORSI. 

^  5>  NORWAY.     Bv  H.  H.  Boyesen. 
I    56.  WALES.     Bv  6.  M.  Edwards. 

■S7-  MEDIiEVAL    ROME.       Bv    W. 

'  Miller.  M.A. 

I    58.  THE  PAPAL  MONARCHY.     By 
'  William  Barry,  D.U. 


London  :  T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Paternoster  Square,  E.G. 


Builders  of  Greater  Britain. 

Edited  by  H.  F.  Wilson. 

A  Set  of  10  Volumes,  each  with  Photogravure  Frontispiece 
and  Map,  large  crown  8vo,  cloth,  5s.  each. 


List  of  Volumes. 

SIR  WALTER  RALEGH ;  the  British  Dominion  of  the  West.     By 

Maktix  a.  S.  Hume. 
SIR  THOMAS   MAITLAND;  the  Mastery  of  the   Mediterranean. 

By  Walter  Fkewex  Lord. 
JOHN  CABOT  AND  HIS   SONS ;  the  Discovery  of  North  America. 

By  C  Raymond  Beazley.  ALA. 
EDWARD  GIBBON  WAKEFIELD ;  the  Colonisation  of  South  Australia 

and  New  Zealand.     By  K.  Garxe'IT.  C.B.,  LL.D. 
LORD  CLIVE ;  the  Foundation  of  British  Rule  in  India.     By  Sir 

A.  J.  Arbuthxot,  K.C.S.L,  CLE. 
ADMIRAL  PHILLIP ;  the  Founding  of  New  South  Wales.    By  Louis 

Becke  and  Walter  Jekfeky. 
RAJAH  BROOKE ;  the  Englishman  as  Ruler  of  an  Eastern  State. 

Bv  Sir  Spexser  St.  Johx,  G.C.ALG. 
SIR  "STAMFORD  RAFFLES ;   England  in  the   Far  East.     By  the 

Editor. 


Masters  of  Medicine. 

Large  crown  8vo,  cloth,  3s.  6d.  each. 


List  of  Volumes. 


1.  JOHN  HUNTER.     By  STEPHEN  Paget. 

2.  WILLIAM  HARVEY.     By  D'Arcy  Power. 

3.  SIR  JAMES  SIMPSON.     By  H.  Laing  Gordon. 

4.  WILLIAM  STOKES.     By  SiR  William  Stokes. 

5.  SIR  BENJAMIN  BRODIE.      By  TIMOTHY  HoLMES. 

6.  CLAUDE  BERNARD.     By  SiR  MICHAEL  FOSTER. 

7.  HERMANN  VON  HELMHOLTZ.     By  John  G.  McKendrick. 

In  preparation. 

THOMAS  SYDENHAM.     By  J.  F.  PAYNE. 
ANDREAS  VESALIUS.     By  C.  L.  TAYLOR. 


London  :  T.  FISHER  UNWIN,  Paternoster  Square,  E.G. 


ST.    I'ETER    IN    CATHEDRA. 

{Ancient  bronze  figure  in  the  Vatican  Basilica,  uncertain  date.) 


THE 

Papal   Monarchy 

FROM  ST.   GREGORY  THE  GREAT 
TO    BONIFACE   VIII. 

(590-1303) 


WILLIAM    BARRY,   D.D. 

FORMERLY  SCHOLAR  OK  THK  ENGLISH  COLLEGE,  ROME  ; 

AM)    PROKKSSOR    OK    KCCLESL^STICAL  HISTORY  IN  ST. 

MARYS  COLLEGE,  OSCO'IT;  Al'THOR  OK  "THE  NEW 

ANTIGONE,  "  "ARDEN   MASSITER,"  ETC. 


'  Roman,  forj^et  not  thoii  to  sway  the  world  ; 
Tliese  be  thy  arts  ; — brinjf  in  the  reign  of  Peace  ; 
Spare  subject  nations ;  put  the  hau^^hty  clown." 

^XEID,  vi.  851-4 


XonDon 

T.     FISHER     UNWIN 

PATERNOSTER   SQUARE 

NEW    YORK:    G.    P.    PUTNAM'S   SONS 

1902 


J3  3 


REESE 


Copyright  ky  T.  Fisher  Uxwix,  1902 
(F(n-  Great  Britain) 

Copyright  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Soxs,  190: 
(For  the  United  States  of  America) 


''BRIEF  glimpses:'  A  handsome  Illus- 
trated Handbook.,  explaining  how  the  famous 
'"'■Story  of  the  Nations''"'  Series  may  be 
purchased  on  the  Instalment  System  at  an 
Enormous  Reduction, 

This  Handbook  contains  56  Specimen  Fnll-pagc  Illustra- 
tions, 54  pai^cs  of  Text  Portraits  of  some  of  tlie  Authors,  a  , 
Complete  List  of  the  Volnnws,  with  particulars  of  the  Writers 
and  Press  Reviews  and  Criticisms.    It  will  be  sent  free  of 
charge  on  application. 


PREFACE 


In  the  first  two  chapters  of  this  book  I  have 
endeavoured  to  explain  its  drift  and  purpose.  As 
a  contribution  to  the  Story  of  the  Nations  it  aims  at 
brevity,  clearness,  and  accuracy  in  outline ;  but  it 
makes  no  pretension  to  do  more  than  open  a  large 
subject  and  serve  the  purpose  of  a  sketch-map  or 
general  introduction  to  the  volumes  of  Baronius, 
Muratori,  and  other  classic  historians.  The  course 
followed,  it  will  be  seen,  is  neither  that  of  a 
theologian  writing  on  dogma,  nor  that  of  an  apolo- 
gist who  desires  to  exhibit  conclusions  in  favour  of 
a  religious  system.  I  am  concerned  with  the  facts 
of  history,  not  with  inferences  and  deductions  from 
them,  which  belong  to  another  department  and  are 
foreign  to  the  present  series.  Not  the  Pope  as  a 
teacher,  but  the  Pope  as  a  ruler  of  men,  in  affairs 
which  may  be  viewed  under  a  secular  as  well  as  a 
religious  aspect,  will  furnish  the  matter  of  my  volume. 
To  attempt  a  bibliography  commensurate  with  the 


52200 


X  PREFACE 

subject  would  be  no  less  difficult  than  superfluous,  on 
occasion  of  a  sketch  like  the  following.  Students  will 
know  what  sources  to  consult  better  than  I  can  tell 
them.  But  the  general  reader  may  be  put  in  mind 
of  some  late  or  early  works,  accessible  to  him  without 
much  effort.  Milman's  "  Latin  Christianity  "  has  long 
enjoyed  popular  favour ;  it  is  in  some  sort  a 
comment  upon  Gibbon,  to  be  supplemented  or 
corrected  by  more  recent  publications.  Gregorovius, 
in  his  voluminous  "  History  of  the  City  of  Rome 
during  the  Middle  Ages,"  is  learned,  eloquent, 
picturesque,  and  Ghibelline.  Cardinal  Hergen- 
rother  has  given  us  the  Guelf  counter-pleading  with 
equal  erudition  and  hardly  less  vehemence  in  his 
"  Catholic  Church  and  Christian  State," — a  work  of 
accurate  scholarship,  abundant  in  original  citations. 
The  late  Professor  of  Church  History  at  Kiel,  Dr. 
William  Moeller,  a  Lutheran,  has  dealt  with  the 
Church  in  the  Middle  Ages  at  great  length  in  the 
second  volume  of  his  well-known  course,  which 
contains  an  exhaustive  and  minute  catalogue  of  the 
sources  in  every,  language.  And  Professor  H.  Grisar, 
S.J.,  has  begun  to  publish  a  most  interesting  as  well  as 
authentic  survey  of  the  same  period,  historical  and 
antiquarian,  which  it  is  hoped  will  appear  in  English  ; 
but  only  the  introduction,  coming  down  to  Gregory 
the  Great,  is  thus  far  in  print. 

To  these  must  be  added,  as  indispensable  to 
students,  Mgr.  L.  Duchesne's  standard  edition  of 
the  "  Liber  Pontificalis."  And  Hauck's  "  History  of 
the  Church  in  Germany,"  which  travels  over  the 
same    ground    but    in    another    direction,    may    be 


PREFACE  XI 

compared  with  the  French  author's  "  Origin  of 
the  Temporal  Power."  These  works  are  not  trans- 
lated. 

On  special  subjects  and  particular  persons  the 
following  will  be  found  useful  :  Lightfoot,  "  St. 
Clement  of  Rome,"  and  "  St.  Ignatius  of  Antioch  "  ; 
the  volumes  of  Harnack's  "  History  of  Dogma " 
which  bear  on  the  Roman  Church  at  its  beginning  ; 
Newman,  "  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine "  ; 
Allies,  "Formation  of  Christendom  "  ;  Bryce,  "The" 
Holy  Roman  Empire  "  ;  Hergenrother,  "  Photius  "  ; 
Voigt  and  Bowden  on  Pope  Gregory  VH. ;  Cotter 
Morrison,  "  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  "  ;  Hurter, 
"  Innocent  HI." ;  L.  Tocco  (in  Italian),  "  Heresy  in  the 
Middle  Age";  P.  Sabatier,  "St.  Francis  of  Assisi," 
and  other  works  ;  E.  A.  Abbott,  "  St.  Thomas  of 
Canterbury,  his  Death  and  Miracles "  ;  Professor 
Maitland,  "  Roman  Canon  Law  in  the  English 
Church";  Montalembert,  "  Monks  of  the  West,"  with 
introduction  by  Abbot  F.  A.  Gasquet ;  W.  S.  Lilly, 
"Chapters  in  European  History";  L.  Eckenstein, 
"  Women  under  Monasticism  "  ;  Gosselin,  "  Power  of 
the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages";  Tosti,  "Boniface 
VIII.  and  His  Times";  Rodocanachi,  "Communal 
Institutions  of  Rome  under  the  Papacy";  and 
"Workmen's  Corporations  from  the  Fall  of  the 
Empire." 

There  is  no  end  to  this  or  any  other  list  of 
authorities.  Let  me  remark  that  I  have,  in  my  narra- 
tive, touched  as  briefly  as  possible  on  the  relations 
of  England  with  Rome  during  the  medieval  period, 
feeling  that   they  were    treated    at   length   in   many 


Xll 


PREFACE 


text-books.  I  conclude  with  the  words  which  Pope 
Leo  XIII.  has  quoted  from  Cicero:  "Above  all 
things  let  writers  bear  in  mind  that  the  first  law  of 
history  is  never  to  dare  to  say  that  which  is  not  true  ; 
and  the  second  never  to  fear  to  say  that  which  is 
true;  lest  the  suspicion  of  hate  or  favour  fall  upon 
their  statements." 


WILLIAM    BARRY. 


Dorchester,  Oxford, 
November  ^,  looi. 


CONTENTS 


Origins  (p,.c.   753-A.D.  67) 

Alaric  in  Rome — St.  Augustine's  "  City  of  God  " — The 
Papal  Monarchy  in  space — In  time — Mohammedans  ruin 
Eastern  Churches,  threaten  the  West,  and  take  St.  Peter's — 
Romans,  Christians,  Teutons,  during  Middle  Age — Their 
disputes  ead  in  the  Reformation — Conversion  of  the  Em- 
pire not  a  destruction  of  its  forms — Pontifex  Maximus  in 
Paganism,  his  privileges  and  duties — Romans  eminently 
religious — First  Christians  in  the  City — Succession  of  Roman 
Bishops  .    .  . 


PACiE 
-20 


II. 

From  Peter  to  Leo  the  Great  (67-461)         .     21 

Spiritual  and  legal  dominion  of  Rome — Influence  of  its 
Law  on  Christian  language — Attitude  of  Popes  towards 
Greek  speculations— East  and  West  divided — Legend  of 
Constantine's  Donation — Oriental  Bishops  and  Papacy — 
Latin  Fathers  exalt  it— Empire  organised  as  Church— Roman 
Patriarchate — Byzantine  prelates  Erastian :  Pope  Damasus 
Ultramontane-  W^anglings  and  ruin  of  Antioch  and 
Alexandria  -Innocent  I. — Fall  of  Paganism— Leo  I.  at 
Chalcedon — Against  Manichees — Takes  appeals  from  Gaul 
— Genseric  in  Rome — Western  Empire  falls — Pope  and 
Bishops  save  what  is  left  of  civilisation. 


-46 


XIV  CONTENTS 


III. 


Gregory    the   Great,    Monasticism,    and    St. 

Benedict  (461-590-604)  ....     47-62 

Justinian  and  his  successors — Gregory's  descent,  virtues, 
administration —He  feedsand  defends  Rome — Makes  peace 
with  Agikilf — His  relations  with  John  th£_Faster,  Maurice, 
and  Phocas — ^Jurisdiction  -over  Bishops^Mission  to  England 
— Clovis  Baptized,  eldest  son  of  ^  the  Church — What  the 
Franks  were  to  achieve — Arians  despise  the  monk  and 
are  vanquished  by  him — Spanish  revolutions  ;'  Hermenegild 
martyr — Frankish  and  Roman  influence  in  Britain — The 
four  triumphs  of  Monasticism — St.  Benedict — His  44fe  at 
Subiaco  and  Cassino — His  Rule,  "To  labour  is  to  pray" — 
Monks  of  the  West — Gregory  dies. 


IV. 

Iconoclast   Emperors  and  Lombard  Kings  (604- 

739) 64-72 

Feeble  Popes,  faineant  Merovings — New  powers  in  Italy — 
Honorius  I.,  Martin  I. — Constans  II.  plunders  Rome — 
Low  state  of  learnings  War  against  images  wakens  Italian 
freedom — Moors  conquer  Spain,  are  defeated  by  Martel — 
His  battles,  alliance  with  St.  Boniface,  tyranny  at  home 
— Ravenna  throws  off  Iconoclast  yoke — Gregory  II. 
restores  Exarch — Romans,  Lombards,  Pope  in  league 
together — Temporal  sovereignty  begins — Liutprand  spoils 
■  St.  Peter's — Gregory  III.  sends  its  keys  to  Martel  and 
makes  him   Roman  Patrician. 


The  Donation  of  Pepin  (739-772)  .         .         .     73-88 

Was  the  Pope  to  be  subject  or  sovereign  ? — The  Roman 
"army"  and  "venerable  clergy" — Chances  of  Lombard" 
rule  on  the  Palatine — Rejected  as  barbarian — Romans  call 
in  French  to  defend  Holy  See — Zachary  Pope — Invasions, 
repentance,  death  of  Liutprand — Rachis  retires  to  Cassino — 
St.  Boniface  founds  German  Church — His  legatine  powers — 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

He  crowns  Pepin  by  Zachary's  command — Constantine  V. , 
iconoclast — Astolf  takes  Ravenna — Stephen  II.  journeys 
to  Pavia,  crosses  the  Alps,  arrives  at  P'rench  Court — Pepin 
invades  Lombardy — Astolf  yields  and  rebels— Second  ex- 
pedition of  Pepin — Lombards  surrender— Pepin's  Dona- 
tion—  Desiderius — Fearful  story  of  Duke  Toto — Pope 
Constantine  II.  and  Christopher — Stephen  III.  invokes 
Lombard  help — Paul  Afiarta — Shame  and  death  of 
Stephen. 


VI. 

Charlemagnk,  Patrician  of  Rome  (772-800)  .     89-99 

Hadrian  I.  reigns  23  years — Charles  sets  aside  Carloman's 
children — Taken  to  Pavia — Last  efforts  of  Lombards — 
Afiarta's  end — French  in  Italy — Charles,  pilgrim  to  the 
Apostles,  his  meeting  with  Hadrian — Alleged  grants  of 
Pepin — His  own  gifts — Ravenna's  pretensions — The  Pope's 
court,  officials,  and  nephews — New  order  but  old  names — 
Opposition  between  Palatine  and  Lateran^ — Clergy  dislike 
the  Pontiff — Bounds  of  Roman  Duchy — Charles  Patrician — 
Hadrian's  death— Leo  elected  same  day. 


VII. 

The  Holy  Roman  Empire  (800-814)       .         .   loo-ii, 

Ominous  incidents — Hadrian's  nephews  attempt  to  murder 
Leo  HI. — His  escape  ;  is  summoned  to  Paderborn,  comes 
back  to  Rome,  purges  himself  on  oath — Charles  crowned 
Christmas,  800 — Birthday  of  Holy  Roman  Empire — No 
Concordat  as  to  rights  or  l/ounds — Its  necessity  and 
advantages — Parliament  of  nations  ;  crusades  against 
Islam — Legend  and  character  of  Charlemagne — His  combats 
with  the  Saxons — Their  forcible  conversion — Feudal  system 
in  Church  and  State — Defeat  of  the  Huns — Emperor's 
court,  schools,  capitularies — He  fails  to  create  a  strong  civil 
order — The  Norsemen  arrive. 


XVI  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chaos  Come  Again  (814-867)  ....   1 14-129 

Louis  of  Aquitaine,  le  Debonnaire,  succeeds  to  the  Empire — 
His  virtues  and  incapacity — Last  years  of  Leo  IIL— Bernard 
of  Italy  revolts,  is  defeated  and  blinded — Remorse  of  Le 
Debonnaire — Lothair's  rebellion — He  intervenes  at  Rome — 
His  diploma  gives  laity  share  in  Papal  election — Gregory 
IV.  on  the  "  Field  of  Lies  " — Louis  deposed,  humbled, 
restored — Treaty  of  Verdun  divides  France  and  Germany — 
Lothair  Emperor — Saracens  lay  waste  St.  Peter's — Leonine 
City  built — Louis  II.  paramount^ Anastasius  the  Librarian  — 
Election  of  Nicholas  L,  called  the  (heat — Three  crises  in  his 
reign,  Photius,  Theutberga,  False  Decretals — Nicholas 
subdues  Ravenna — Lothair  of  Lorraine  repudiates  his  wife  : 
Ci^sar  Bardas  does  the  same — Irregular  and  usurped  honours 
of  the  learned  Photius — Nicholas  excommunicates  him — 
Photius  retorts  with  a  schism — His  legacy  to  scholars  ;  more 
dangerous  one  to  the  Greeks— Christendom  divided — 
Splendour  of  Islam,  which  also  rent  by  factions — Peril  of 
Europe. 


Fp:udal      Hierarchy  —  False     Decretals     (847- 

882) 130-143 

Troubles  in  Galilean  Church — Nicholas  compels  Lothair  to 
take  back  his  queen  and  deposes  PVench  Bishops — Their 
great  insolence — Kings  their  servants — Hincmar's  address  to 
Louis  III. — Forgeries — The  False  Isidore — He  is  not  a 
Roman ;  perhaps  Benedict  Levita,  under  Otgar  of  Mayence 
in  847 — Immunity  from  trial  of  Bishops  ;  the  Pope  supreme 
appellant  judge — Earlier  instances  of  appeal  to  Rome — ■ 
Sources  from  which  new  legislation  compiled — Its  authority 
and  detection — Hadrian  II. 's  domestic  tragedy — Lothair's 
pilgrimage  and  death — Charles  the  Bald  seizes  Lorraine — 
Protest  of  Hadrian,  who  supports  Carloman  and  quarrels 
with  Hincmar — ^John  VIII.  crowns  Charles  Emperor — 
Is  himself  murdered,  after  fyuitless  energy — Universal  dis- 
order. 


CONTENTS  XVI 1 

PAGE 

House  of  Theophylact   (882-964)  .         .  144-162 

Eclipse  of  Empire  and  Papacy — Conversion  of  the  North — 
Guy  of  Spoleto — Formosus  in  Bulgaria — Reduced  to  Lay 
Communion — Restored  by  Marinus  II. — Elected  Pope, 
crowns  Arnulf,  dies — Stephen  VI.  tries  and  condemns  dead 
Formosus  in  Lateran  Council — Himself  strangled — Two 
Pontiffs,  Sergius  III.,  John  IX. — Ordinations  of  Formosus 
confirmed — Theophylact,  Duke  and  Senator — His  wife 
Theodora  and  her  daughters  govern  Rome — Sergius  III. 
brought  back  by  her — More  scandals — ^John  X.  from  Ravenna 
drives  out  Saracens — Hugh  of  Provence  :  his  marriage 
with  Marozia — The  Romans  rebel — Alberic  Senator — 
Adelaide  summons  Otho  from  Germany — Greek  alliance  of 
Alberic — His  son,  John  XIL,  boy-Pope,  crowns  Otho,  and 
is  deposed  by  him — Leo  VIII.  and  Benedict  V. 

*XI. 
Romance   of  the   Othos   (964-1003)       .         .  163-178 

"Privilege  of  Otho" — He  becomes  "Grand  Elector"  to 
Papacy — His  cruelties  in  Rome — Gives  back  some  of  St. 
Peter's  Patrimony — His  wide  dominion — Descent  from 
Henry  Fowler— His  battles,  laws,  beneficences  to  clergy — 
Tenth-century  Charlemagne — Crescenzio  murders  Benedict 
VI. — Otho  II.  defeated  by  Saracens—  Dies  in  Rome — His  j 
Empress  a  Greek— PVanco  kills  John  XI\'.  and  becomes 
Benedict  VII. — Youth  and  ideals  of  Otho  III. — Crowned 
at  Pavia — Makes  his  cousin  Bruno  Pope  Gregory  V. — Trial 
and  pardon  of  Crescenzio  II. — First  appearance  of  Medieval 
Tribune — Philagathus,  Antipope — His  fearful  doom — Cres- 
cenzio taken  in  St.  Angelo  and  executed — Story  of  Otho 
and  Stefania — Hopes  of  a  better  age — Gerbert's  fortunes 
and  elevation — Otho  assailed  in  his  palace — His  penance  and 
pilgrimings — His  death — Followed  by  Gerbert. 

ixil. 

TuscuLAN  Succession — Papacy  Bought  and   Sold 

(1003-1048)     180-189 

New    branch     of    Theophylact— -Tusculum — Popes    of  that 
la 


XVI 11  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

House — Emperor  Henry  II.  recognises  Benedict  VIII.,  who 
wars  with  Islam — Saints  on  the  throne — Benevento  given  to 
Holy  See — Moral  decadence  of  clerics — Another  boy-Pope, 
Benedict  IX.,  Theodora's  brood — Silvester  Antipope — 
Benedict  sells  the  tiara  to  Gratian,  or  Gregory  VL — Ilenj-y 
II.  at  Sutri  deposes  all  three — Bruno  of  Toul  appointed  ; 
known  as  St,  Leo  IX. — End  of  the  dynasty  of  Theophylact 
which  had  lasted  150  years. 


/* 


l/^III. 

HiLDEBRAND     (1048-IO73)  .  .  .    I9O-205 

Possible  ways  of  escape  from  long  degradation — Popedom 
becomes  Monastic  and  Benedictine — Monks  had  lapsed, 
were  reformed  by  Cluny — Its  illustrious  names — Ilildeljrand 
on  the  Aventine— In  exile  with  Gregory  VL — Returns  with 
Leo  IX. — His  resemblance  to  St.  Paul — Programme,  "Take 
their  wives  from  clergy,  investitures  from  laity" — Leo  IX. 
travels  over  Europe — Penance  of  Godfrey  of  Lorraine — Pope 
in  Rheims  Cathedral — At  Presburg  and  Worms — His 
military  expeditions — Defeated  at  Civitella  by  Normans — 
Dying  moments — Hildebrand  governs  Church — Elects  Victor 
II.,  who  is  supreme  also  in  Empire — Strange  fortunes  of 
Stephen  IX. — Roman  troubles — Benedict  X.  and  Nicholas 
II. — Fresh  rules  exclude  Emperor  and  laity  from  elections — 
Robert  Guiscard,  vassal  of  the  Holy  See — Alexander  11. 
opposed  by  Cadalus  Antipope  of  Parma — War  in  Germany  ; 
Henry  IV.  and  his  stormy  youth — Plildebrand,  elected  by 
popular  voice,  consents  reluctantly. 

iXiv. 
Henry  IV.  at  Canossa  (1073-1076)        .         .  206-227 

Gregory  VII. 's  enterprise  to  free  Church  from  feudalism — A 
medieval  Prophet,  his  raptures  and  sadness — Leader  of  a 
growing  movement — Discipline  touching  clerical  celibacy 
in  East  and  West — Its  desuetude — Peter  Damiani,  champion 
of  reform — Bishops  and  priests  married — Instances — 
Milan  centre  of  struggle — Heribert — Guido  and  An- 
selm — People  side  with  monk^ — Murder  of  Ariald  and 
Herlembald — Celibacy    triumphs — Question   of   investitures 


CONTENTS  XIX 


more  difficult — Papacy  and  Empire,  strong  or  weak  in  same 
points — Bishops  take  Henry  IV.  as  their  chief — His  bad 
bringing  up,  vices,  repentances — Saxons  revolt — Battle  of 
1  lohenburg — German  factions — Gregory  abolishes  investiture. 
— Forecast  of  later  quarrels — Law  of  celibacy  dead  letter 
across  the  Alps — Cencio  seizes  and  wounds  the  Pope — 
He  summons  Henry  to  Rome — Is  himself  called  on  by  > 
Teutons  to  abdicate — Deposes  the  Emperor — Who  loses 
his  friends  and  is  disgraced  at  Tribur — He  passes  Mont 
Cenis,  appears  at  Canossa — His  penance  in  the  snow — Hard 
conditions  laid  on  him  by  Gregory — An  event  without 
parallel. 

XV. 

Normans,     Crusades,      Investitures      (1076- 

1123) 228-244 

Revenge  taken  by  Emperor — Siege  of  Rome  ;  Guibert  and 
Henry  in  St.  Peter's — Robert  Guiscard  enters  with  his 
Normans  :  massacre  and  conflagration — Gregory  retires  to 
Salerno,  where  he  dies-r- Victor  HI.,  Abl)ot  of  Monte 
Cassino — Urban  II.,  French,  author  of  First  Crusade — 
New  grants  to  Papacy — Henry  IV.  conquers  in  part,  is 
deposed  again  at  Piacenza — His  son  Conrad  rebels — Council 
of  Clermont — Crusades  make  Pope  Lord  of  the  West — 
Emperor  defeated  and  taken  by  Prince  Henry— Dies  at 
Liege — New  Emperor's  feats  in  Italy — Paschal  II.  oflers  to 
surrender  regalia,  i.e.,  to  disendow  Church-— inirious  dis- 
sensions ;  Paschal  a  prisoner  in  St.  Peter's  and  at  Treviso 
— He  gives  up  everything — Indignation  of  Cardinals — His 
decree  rescinded — MisAutunes  and  death  of  Gelasius  II. — 
French  Pope,  Calixtus  II.,  makes  peace — Concoitlat  of 
Worms  :   Kirst  General  Council  of  Lateran. 


XVI. 

St.   Bernard  Overthrows  Abelard   and  Arnold 

(1123-1155)     246-262 

King  of  the  age,  Bernard  of  Clairvaux — First  symptoms  of 
modern  ideas  and  institutions — The  Cistercians — Bernard's 


XX  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

preaching — Contested  election  in  Rome  :  Bernard  decides  for 
Innocent  II. — Leads  Second  Council  of  Lateran — France 
supreme  at  this  period — Paris  University — Anselm  of  Bee, 
Lanfranc,  William  of  Champeaux — Birthplace,  character, 
ambition,  and  catastrophe  of  Abelard — At  St.  Denis  and  the 
Paraclete — St.  Bernard  accuses  him  at  Sens — His  con- 
demnation and  last  days — ^Arnold  of  Brescia,  his  disciple, 
revives  Roman  Republic — Eugene  III. — Second  Crusade — 
St.  Bernard's  renown — Hadrian  IV.  the  English  Pope — 
He  makes  terms  with  Barbarossa — Arnold  hanged  and 
burnt — The  Emperor's  claim  to  universal  dominion — First 
chapter  of  dispute  between  Roman  Law  and  Roman  Pontiff.    - 

Frederick     Redbeard     and     His     Time     (1155- 

1177)        .......  263-281 

Ghibellines  not  heretics ;  Guelfs  not  saints — Barbarossa,  a 
German  Hannibal — Guelfs  uphold  Italian  freedom  and  are 
partisans  of  the  Pope — Hadrian  IV.  invests  Normans  with 
South  Italy — P'rederick  at  Besanyon,  at  Roncaglia — Lom- 
bard League — Alexander  HI. — Octavian  An ti pope  in  Rome 
— Alexander  in  France — Henry  II.  begins  his  quarrel  with 
Becket — Showy  Chancellor  :  austere  Archbishop — Consti- 
tutions of  Clarendon — Thomas  consents  to  them  ;  draws 
back  ;  escapes  to  France — The  Pope's  hesitations  ;  venality 
of  Roman  Court — Barbarossa  tyrant  in  Rome — Plague 
attacks  his  army ;  shameful  flight  of  Emperor — Interdict 
published  by  Thomas — His  return  to  Canterbury — Martyr- 
dom and  miracles — Henry  II.  offers  England  as  fief  to  Holy 
See — His  last  days  and  death — Frederick  defeated  at 
Legnano — Reconciled  with  the  Pope  at  Venice — Lombard 
freedom. 

XVIII. 

Enter   Innocent   IIL    and   Fredb:rick   of   Sicily 

(1177-1214)     282-295 

Third  Lateran  Council — Manichees  and  Apostolics — 
Saladin  conquers  Jerusalem — Siege  of  Acre — Barbarossa 
drowned  in  Asiatic  stream — His  legendary  sleep — Marriage 


CONTENTS  XXI 

PAGE 

of  Henry  VI.  to  Constance  of  Sicily — A  man  of  blood  and 
iron — His  frightful  executions  at  Palermo— Frederick  II. 
born — Death  of  Henry  ;  election  of  Innocent  III. — (Jreat 
reign  begins — Takes  Frederick  under  his  protection  ;  sub- 
dues Central  Italy — Philip  and  Otho  candidates  for  Empire — 
Long  war,  was  it  due  to  Innocent  ? — I  le  sides  with  Otho, 
then  with  Philip,  then  with  Otho  again — The  latter  cruel 
and  rapacious — Germans  offer  Frederick  the  crown — Inno- 
cent confirms  it — Brilliant  adventure  of  the  young  king — 
Otho  deposed,  dies  in  monastery. 


XIX. 

Crusades  against  Greeks  and  Alp-igenses  (1201- 

1233) 296-310 

Fulk  of  Neuilly — Fourth  Crusade  starts  from  Venice — Takes 
Zara  ;  is  condemned  by  Pope  ;  but  seizes  and  plunders 
Constantinople — Fatal  Latin  Empire — First  example  of 
crusade  against  Christians — Followed  by  war  of  Albi — 
Interests  at  stake — Languedoc,  Manichean  J"dea — Ray- 
mund  VI.  of  Toulouse — Preaching  Cistercians — Legate 
murdered — Burgundy  marches  on  Provence — Simon  de 
Montfort — Horrors  of  Beziers,  &c. — Pedro  of  Arragon  killed 
at  Muret — Total  ruin  of  the  Count  and  his  people — Louis 
VIII.  renews  crusade — Provence  falls  to  French  crown — 
Retrospect  and  prospect  from  the  garden  of  Giblion  at 
Lausanne  over  these  religious  wars  and  their  con- 
sequences. 

XX. 

St.   Francis — the  Friars — the  Lateran   Council 

(1182-1215-1226)    .....  311-332 

Italian  tyrants — Luxury  and  leprosy — Francis  of  Assisi  saves 
the  Church  in  Italy,  adds  a  page  to  the  New  Testament — 
Unique  among  Saints — Appeals  to  the  Gospel  and  the  people 
— Policy  towards  him  of  Cardinal  Ugolino — Moderates  and 
Spirituals — The  Friars  a  Papal  Militia — St.  Dominic  ;  not 
founder    of    Inquisition — What  these    new  Orders    accom- 


XXI 1  CONTENTS 

plished — Their  influence  over  middle  class — Philip  Augustus 
and  his  marriages — Other  bad  cases — Innocent  tolerates 
King  John's  disorders — Stephen  Langton — Crusade  against 
John — lie  becomes  the  Pope's  vassal — Magna  Charta — How 
dealt  with  in  Rome — Fourth  Council  of  Lateran-  -Medieval 
legislation  touching  heretics  and  heresy— Contrast  between 
Innocent  and  Francis. 


XXI. 

Excommunication — Wars — Fate  of  Frederick  II. 

(1216-1250)     333-350 

I'our  acts  of  great  drama  beginning — Frederick  takes  the 
cross,  but  delays  expedition — Gregory  IX. — 'Decretals  and 
Imperial  Law — Under  menace  Frederick  sets  out,  but  returns 
to  Otranto — Is  excommunicated — Arrives  Acre,  enters  Jeru- 
salem— In  Italy  again,  disperses  Papal  troops — Peace  of 
San  (jermano — The  Emperor's  sons — War  with  Lombards —  ^ 

Imperial  victories — Fresh  excommunication — Popular  dis- 
content with  Gregory — Amazing  works,  perils,  and  anarchy 
of  this  period — ^The  Tartars — Gregory's  end — Frederick 
beats  back  the  Scythian  wave — Innocent  IV.  ;  his  character 
r  — He  deposes  the  Hohenstaufifen  at  Lyons — Misfortunes, 
/      death,  sepulchre  of  the  last  genuine  Roman  Emperor. 


XXII. 

Conradin    Dies — The    Sicilian    Vespers    (1250- 

1299) 35^-374 

Henceforth,  Empire  German,  not  Roman — Ghibellines  put 
down — Innocent's  progress — Story  of  Manfred — The  Pope 
offers  Sicily  to  Charles  of  Anjou  and  dies — Alexander  IV. — 
Industrial  class  against  feudal  lords — Urban  \\.,  cobbler's 
son — Charles  of  Anjou  Roman  Senator^ — ^Clement  IV. — 
Battle  of  Ceperano  ;  Manfred  slain — French  cruelties — Ex- 
pedition, defeat,  execution  of  Conradin— Gregory  X. — 
Council  of  Lyons — Sicilian  Vespers — Pedro  of  Arragon  lands 
af  Trapani — Seventeen  years'  war — Papal  suzerainty  over  the 
South  becomes  mere  name — Feudal  system  waning. 


CONTENTS  XXlll 

XXIII 

I'AC.E 

Roman     Law     rKRsrs     Roman     Pontiff    (1226- 

1287) 375-390 

Steady  growth  of  France — Blanche  of  Castile — St.  Louis, 
the  Catholic  Marcus  Aurelius — His  crusade  in  Egypt — 
Henry  III.,  the  Charters,  and  English  Parliaments — Award  . 
of  Louis — "  Reign  of  Law  "in  thixJLefintJti  century — Frederick 
-U-»  Alfonso  the^^se,  St.  Loujs,  Edward  I. — Decay  of  Rome, 
rise  of  Paris — Its  University — The  Schoolmen — William  of 
St.  Amour — Friars  lose  their  influence — St.  Louis  dies 
at  Tunis — Last  Crusade — England  and  Russia  destined  to 
subdue  the  world  of  Islam. 

XXIV. 

Philip     the    Fair    and    Pope    Boniface     (1287- 

1300) 39T-40S 

Transition  to  absolute  kings  and  court  lawyers — Philip  shuts 
out  clerics  from  civil  law  and  its  functions — Pope  Nicholas 
IV.  F'ranciscan — Conclaves  arid  interregnum — Election  of 
Peter  Morone,  spiritual  friar,  from  Abruzzi — Saintly  ways 
and  innocence  of  Coelestine  V. — He  "makes  the  grand 
refusal " — Is  succeeded  by  Caetani,  after  compact  with 
Charles  of  Naples — Boniface  VIII.  quarrels  with  Guelfs, 
friars,  Romans,  kings — Blasted  by  Dante's  malediction — His 
real  character — He  keeps  Celestine  X.  in  prison — Adolphus 
of  Nassau  and  Albert  of  Austria — Edward  I.  lays  heavy 
tax  on  the  Church— Confiscation  of  its  property  by  lay- 
men— Philip  the  Fair  and  his  "  maltote" — He  also  plunders 
clergy — Bonifiice  issues  the  Bull  "  Clericis  laicos" — Robert 
of  Winchelsea — Progress  of  (quarrel  between  Pope  and 
F'rance  delayed  by  aflfair  of  the  Colonnas — Its  shameful 
features — Arbitration — Scots  appeal  to  Boniface. 

XXV. 

Dante's    Vision — Anagni — End    of    the    Middle 

Age  ( 1 300-1 303)         ....         409-420 

Jubilee  of  1300  at  which  Dante  is  present— His  Divine 
Pilgrimage — Dispute   with   Edward    and    Philip  resumed — 


XXIV  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

False  tales — Real  difficulties — Saisset  of  Pamiers — Letters 
sent  by  Boniface,  full  of  threats — "  Ausculta,  Fili" — States- 
General  in  Notre  Dame — Monstrous  accusations  against 
the  Pope — And  in  Assembly  at  Louvre — Philip  compels 
all  France  to  appeal  to  General  Council — The  reply  is 
the  "  Unani  Sanctam  " — King  to  be  deposed  September  8, 
1303 — Nogaret  and  Sciarra  enter  Anagni  day  previous — 
Assault  on  the  Pope's  palace — His  "  passion"  of  three  days 
— Rescued,  dies  in  Rome,  but  not  by  violence — Dante's 
verses — Charlemagne  has  given  place  to  secular,  antipapal 
King  and  system. 


Epilogue      .......         421-428 

Philip  pursues  the  memory  of  Boniface — Mildness  of  Benedict 
XL — Compact  between  King  and  Bertrand  de  (ioth,  who 
becomes  Clement  V. — Council  of  Vienne — Papacy  trans- 
ferred to  Avignon — Medieval  system  ends  with  thirteenth 
century — From  Avignon  to  Constance,  Basle,  and  Diet 
of  Worms — Benefits  of  Papal  Monarchy  far  outweigh  its 
abuses — Rome,  the  meeting-place  and  centre  of  history 
— The  broken  bridge  of  Avignon  marks  a  turning-point — 
Conclusion. 


List  of  Roman  Pontiffs 429 

Index   of  Names 431 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


St.  Peter  in  Cathedra.     Ancient  bronze  fi}:^ure  in 

Vatican  Basilica^  uncertain  date    .  .    Fro7itispiece 


Head  of  the   Redeemer.       Fresco   in    Cataco7nb   of 
San  Callisto — Third  Cetiturv 


Heads    of    SS.    Peter    and    Paul. 
Ancient  Glass  Patera 


From   a    verv 


Confession    or    Tomb     of     St.    Pf:ter     in 
Vatican  Basilica  .  < 


THE 


Arch  of  Constantine  the  Great.     Fourth  Century     23 

Galea  Placidia  and  St.  Leo.  Mosaic  above  Triumphal 

Arch  in  St.  PauVs  outside  Rome.     Fifth  Century  .     39 

T0M15  OF  Theodoric  at  Ravenna.     Sixth  Century    .     48 
St.  Gregory  the  Great.     From  a?i   Engraving  in 

the  British  Museum  Print  Room   .  -57 

St.  Benedict  Abbot.  Fro?n  a  Portrait  by  Sassofe?-rato 

at  Perugia  .  .  .  -63 

Church  of  San  Vitale,  Ravenna.     Sixth  Century  .     69 

Pope  Zachary,  a.d.  752         .  .  .  -76 


XXVI  LIST   OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Pope  Hadrian  L,  a.d.  772   .  .  .  -87 

Interior  of  Sant'  Apollinare  in  Classe,  Ra- 
venna.    Sixth  Ce?itury    .  .  .  -93 

Equestrian  Statue  of  the  Emperor  Charlemagne 

in  the  Vestibule  of  St.  Peter's.    Corjiacchini  103 

Church  of  Sant'  Agnese  Outside  Rome,  a.d.  625  .   117 

Old  St.  Peter's.     Interior    .             .             .  126 

Sant'  Apollinare,  Ravenna.     Exterior       .  .142 

House  of  the  Vestals  in  the  Forum  (Rome)  .   151 

Castle   and  Bridge    of   Sant'  Angelo  (Mole  of 

Hadrian)  .  .  .  .  -155 

Otho  L,  Emperor  "The  Great,"  a.d.  973.     From 

a  print  ijt  the  British  Museum       .  .  •   165 

The   Good   Shepherd — Early  Byzantine  Mosaic 

AT  Ravenna         .  .  .  .  -179 

Inscription    in    Santa    Sabina  on  the  Aventine. 

Fifth.  Century         .  .  .  .  .186 

St.  Paul's  Outside  Rome,  of  which    Hildebrand 

WAS  Abbot.     Fifth  Century — restored      .  -195 

Arch  of  Trajan  at  Beneventum   .  .  -199 

St.  (iRegory    VII.,   Pope  a.d.    1085.     From   an  old 

engraving .  "    .  .  .  .  .208 

Henry  IV.,  Emperor  a.d.   1076.     From  a  print  in 

the  British  Museum  .  .  .  .222 

Temple  of  Antoninus  and  Faustina  in  the 
Forum  (Rome),  showing  Traces  of  Fire, 
a.d.  1083  .....  231 

Countess    Matilda    in    the    Vatican     Basilica. 

Bernini     .  .  .  .  .  .241 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  XXVll 

PAGE 

Salerno     where     Gregory     VII.    died     and     is 

ENTOMBED  .  .  .  .  -245 


Cloister  of  St.  John  Lateran,  Rome 

The   Duomo   of   Pisa,   consecrated   by   Gelasius 
II.,  a.d:  1118       . 

Henry  II.,  King  of  England.     From  an  engraving 
in  the  British  Museum 

Arms   of   the   See  of  Canterbury,  showing   the 
Pallium  ..... 

Meeting  of  Alexander  III.  and  Ziani,  Doge  of 
Venice,  a.d.   1177.     Bassano 

Alexander  III.  bestows  a  Sword  on  the  Doge 
Bassano    ..... 

Pope  Innocent  III.,  a.d.   1198 

^  San  Marco,  Venice  .... 

Assisi  ..... 

St.  Francis  weds  Poverty.     Giotto 

John,    King    of    Encjland.      From   a  print  in   the 
British  Museian    .... 

Tomb  of  St.  Dominic — Bologna,  a.d.   1221 

Perugia  ..... 

Roger,  King  of  Sicily,  receives  his  Crown  from 
Christ.     Mosaic  in  la  Martorana,  Palermo 

Cloisters  of  the  Church  of  Monreale  . 

PaleRxMO  Cathedral  in   which    is    the   Tomb    of 
Frederick  II.      .  ... 

Pope  Innocent  IV.,  a.d.   1254 

Espousals  of  the  Virgin.     Fresco  at  Viterbo 


251 

257 
271 
276 

278 

279 
289 
301 
312 
313 

321 
327 
330 

337 
343 

349 
355 
357 


XX VI 11  LIST  OP  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Espousals  of  the  Virgin.     Fresco  at  Viterbo  .  359 

Ruins  of  the  Archbishop's  Palace,  Viterbo        .  362 

San  Giovanni  Degli  Eremiti,  Palermo — ("Sicilian 

Vespers,"  a.d.   1282)       ....  369 

Viterbo — Palazzo  Alessandrini      .  .  .  373 

King  Louis  IX.  (St.  Louis)  of  France      .  .  379 

St.    Louis    administers    Justice.       Fresco    in    the 

Pantheon^  Paris    .....   383 

The  Glory  of  Obedience.     Fresco  by  Giotto — Assist  387 

Edward  L,  King  of  England         .  .  .  399 

Pope    Boniface    VI I L     A    Satirical    Portrait  from 

Joachim'' s  ^^  Pope  Book  ^''     .  .  .  -407 

Philip  the  Fair,  King  of  France  .  .412 

Anagni  .  .  .  .  .  .421 

The     Papal     Palace     and     Broken    Bridge    of 

Avignon.     From  an  old  Steel  Plate  after  T.  Allom  427 


MAPS. 

Map  of  Rome         .  .  Betiveen  Preface  and  Contents 

Map  of  Italy         .  .  .  Following  Index 


PAPAL    MONARCHY 


I 

ORIGINS 

Cb.c.  753-a.d.  (yj) 


^^^     or  THE      ^r- 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


In  the  night  of  the  24th  of  August,  410,  Alaric, 
King  of  the  Western  Goths,  entered  Rome  with  his 
army,  by  the  Salarian  Gate  —  outside  of  which 
Hannibal  had  encamped  long  ago — and  took  the 
Imperial  City.  Eleven  hundred  and  sixty-four  years 
had  passed  since  its  legendary  foundation  under 
Romulus ;  four  hundred  and  forty-one  since  the 
battle  of  Actium,  which  made  Augustus  Lord  in 
deed,  if  not  in  name,  of  the  Roman  world.  When 
the  Gothic  trump  sounded  at  midnight,  it  announced 
that  ancient  history  had  come  to  an  end,  and  that 
our  modern  time  was  born.  St.  Jerome,  who  in  his 
cell  at  Bethlehem  saw  the  Capitol  given  over  to  fire 
and  flame,  was  justified  from  an  historical  point  of 
view  when  he  wrote  to  the  noble  virgin  Demetrias, 
"  Thy  city,  once  the  head  of  the  universe,  is  the 
sepulchre  of  the  Roman  people."     Even  in  that  age 

2 


2  ORIGINS 

of  immense  and  growing  confusion,  the  nations  held 
their  breath  when  these  tidings  broke  upon  them. 
Adherents  of  the  classic  religion  who  still  survived 
felt  in  them  a  judgment  of  the  gods ;  they  charged 
on    Christians  the    long  sequel   of  calamities  which 


HEAD    OF   THE    REDEEMER. 

{Fresco  in  Catacomb  of  San  Callisto — Third  Century.) 

had  come  down  upon  the  once  invincible  Empire. 
Christians  retorted  that  its  fall  was  the  chastisement 
of  idolatry.  And  their  supreme  philosopher,  the 
African  Father  St.  Augustine,  wrote  his  monumental 
work,  "  Of  the  City  of  God,"  by  way  of  proving  that 


THE    '^  CITY    OF   GOD''  3 

there  was  a  Divine  kingdom  which  heathen  Rome 
could  persecute  in  the  martyrs,  but  the  final  triumph 
of  which  it  could  never  prevent.  This  magnificent 
conception,  wrought  out  in  a  vein  of  prophecy,  and 
with  an  eloquence  which  has  not  lost  its  power, 
furnished  to  succeeding  times  an  Apocalypse  no  less 
than  a  justification  of  the  Gospel.  Instead  of  heathen 
Rome,  it  set  up  an  ideal  Christendom.  But  the 
centre,  the  meeting-place,  of  old  and  new,  was  the 
City  on  the  Seven  Hills. 

To  the  Roman  Empire  succeeded  the  Papal 
Monarchy.  The  Pope  called  himself  Pontifex  Maxi- 
mus  ;  and  if  this  hieratic  name — the  oldest  in  Europe 
— signifies  "  the  priest  that  offered  sacrifice  on  the 
Sublician  bridge,"  it  denotes,  in  a  curious  symbolic 
fashion,  what  the  Papacy  was  destined  to  achieve,  as 
well  as  the  inward  strength  on  which  it  relied,  during 
the  thousand  years  that  stretch  between  the  invasion 
of  the  Barbarians  and  the  Renaissance.  When  we 
speak  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  mean  this  second, 
spiritual  and  Christian  Rome,  in  conflict  with  the 
Northern  tribes  and  then  their  teacher;  the  mother 
of  civilisation,  the  source  to  Western  peoples  of 
religion,  law,  and  order,  of  learning,  art,  and  civic 
institutions.  It  became  to  them  what  Delphi  had 
been  to  the  Greeks,  and  especially  to  the  Dorians,  an 
oracle  which  decided  the  issues  of  peace  and  war, 
which  held  them  in  a  common  brotherhood,  and 
which  never  ceased  to  be  a  rallying  point  amid  their 
fiercest  dissensions.  Thus  it  gave  to  the  multitude 
of  tribes  which  wandered  or  settled  down  within  the 
boundaries  of  the  West,  from  Lithuania  to  Ireland, 


4  ORIGINS 

from  Illyria  to  Portugal,  and  from  Sicily  to  the 
North  Cape,  a  brain,  a  conscience,  and  an  imagina- 
tion, which  at  length  transformed  them  into  the 
Christendom  that  Augustine  had  foreseen. 

If  the  Papacy  were  blotted  out  from  the  world's 
chronicle,  the  Middle  Ages  would  vanish  along  with 
it.  But  modern  Europe  cannot  be  deduced,  as  was 
thought  in  the  last  century  by  writers  like  Voltaire 
and  Montesquieu,  from  Augustan  Rome,  with  no 
regard  for  the  long  transition  which  connects  them 
together.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  medieval  Popes 
take  their  place  in  the  Story  of  the  Nations ;  they 
continue  the  Roman  history  ;  they  account  in  no 
small  degree  for  the  institutions  under  which  we  are 
living  ;  and  their  fortunes,  so  exalted,  so  unhappy, 
and  not  seldom  so  tragical,  shape  themselves  into  a 
drama,  the  scenes  and  vicissitudes  of  which  are  as 
highly  romantic  as  they  are  expressive  of  one  great 
ruling  idea. 

The  stage  on  which  this  mighty  miracle-play  was 
enacted,  though  spacious,  was  well  defined.  Our 
direct  concern  will  not  be  with  any  dogmatic  or 
strictly  religious  claims  put  forth  by  the  Popes — 
these  belong  to  the  theologian — but  with  the  sove- 
reignty which  they  exercised,  the  nations  affected  by 
their  decretals,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  which  their 
word  called  into  being,  and  the  kingdoms  which 
gladly  or  reluctantly  acknowledged  in  them  a  feudal 
lordship.  Thus  their  dominion  never,  if  we  except 
passing  interludes,  went  beyond  the  old  Patriarchate 
of  the  West,  as  recognised  at  the. Council  of  Nicsea. 
Not  even  the  haughtiest  Pontiffs  pretended  to  make 


THE    POPE    A    WESTERN  5 

or  unmake  the  Byzantine  Emperors.  They  dealt 
otherwise  with  the  Prankish  or  Suabian  chiefs,  whom 
they  anointed,  crowned,  excommunicated,  and  de- 
posed at  the  tomb  of  the  Apostles.  But  until 
Gregory  II.  in  731  cast  off  his  allegiance,  they  had 
been  subjects,  not  suzerains,  of  Constantinople. 
With  Latin  Emperors  they  felt  themselves  able  to 
cope;  but  the  majesty  of  that  earlier  Rome  lingered 
yet  on  the  shores  of  the  Bosporus  ;  and  the  Papal 
Monarchy  vails  its  crest  before  it,  unless  when  the 
Franks  have  usurped  a  precarious  and  hateful  power 
in  Byzance  after  the  Fourth  Crusade,  or  the  Normans 
and  Venetians  divide  between  them  the  strong  places 
of  Attica  and  the  Morea.  Always  the  Pope  is 
Western,  not  Eastern,  though  he  may  become  a  slave 
of  the  palace  during  the  two  hundred  years  which 
follow  on  the  conquest  of  Italy  by  Belisarius.  Yet 
even  in  that  period  of  depression  he  was  slowly 
winning  ground  outside  the  Empire,  and  every  tribe 
made  Christian  was  bringing  a  fresh  stone  to  build 
up  the  arch  of  the  Papal  power,  fated  for  so  long 
to  stride  visibly  across  the  kingdoms  of  Europe. 

Had  the  Emperors  of  the  East  known  how  to 
withstand  the  onset  of  those  hordes  which  streamed 
down  over  the  Alps ;  could  they  have  overthrown  or 
subdued  the  Lombards,  and  so  kept  the  Pepins  and 
Charlemagnes  at  home,  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
any  Pope  would  have  dreamt  of  playing  the  great 
part  in  politics  which  was  found  inviting  or  inevitable 
as  time  went  on.  But  the  old  Empire  shrank  to  the 
Exarchate  of  Ravenna ;  it  could  barely  maintain 
itself  on  the  edge  of  the  Ionian  Sea.     The  Pontiff, 


O  ORIGINS 

looking  round  for  help  against  the  now  converted 
but  always  detestable  Longbeards  of  Pavia,  signalled 
to  the  most  daring  of  the  new  Christian  nations. 
Pepin  answered  his  call  ;  overcame  Astolphus  ; 
bestowed  on  St.  Peter  a  patrimony  in  lands,  serfs, 
and  cities  ;  and  paved  the  way  for  his  son's  corona- 
tion in  800  as  Emperor  of  the  West.  He  certainly 
did  not  foresee  that  the  "  Sacerdotium "  and  the 
"  Imperium  "  —  those  divided  members  which  in 
heathen  Rome  had  been  united  in  the  same  person — 
would  struggle  during  the  next  seven  hundred  years 
in  a  doubtful  contest,  until  both  sank  exhausted  and 
the  Reformation  broke  Christendom  in  twain.  As 
there  is  a  unity  of  place,  determined  by  the  bounds 
of  the  Lower  Greek  Empire,  which  includes  this  vast 
and  exceedingly  human  series  of  transactions,  so 
there  is  a  unity  of  time,  but  as  might  be  expected, 
not  marked  by  such  definite  limits.  St.  Gregory 
the  Great  is  its  herald  and  anticipation  ;  Boniface 
VIII.  brings  it  to  a  close.  But  as  several  centuries 
take  us  slowly  on  to  the  culminating  point,  so  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  lead  us  downwards  again 
until  the  idea  of  an  Imperial  Papal  Christendom  has 
spent  its  force.  The  Lateran  Monarchy  stood  at  its 
height  during  some  two  hundred  years  —  from 
Gregory  VII.  to  Innocent  III.,  or  perhaps  to 
Gregory  X.  (1073-1274).  Its  creative  influence,  if 
we  regard  European  civilisation  as  a  whole,  had 
begun  sooner  and  lasted  longer  ;  "it  was  often  visible 
at  the  extremities  when  Rome  itself  had  sunk  into  a 
strange  barbarism.  Its  spiritual  energy  neither  rose 
nor  fell  in  exact  proportion  to  the  outward  splendour 


MOHAMMED  J 

of  the  Holy  See,  as  many  instances  will  prove  in  the 
pages  that  follow. 

But  another  condition  of  this  second  rise  to  great- 
ness on  the  part  of  Rome  has  been  often  overlooked. 
If  St.    Peter   was    considered    to    be    the    spiritual 


HEADS   OF    S.-,.    i  1.11.1-    .wsl;    PAUL. 

{From  a  very  Ancienl  Glass  Patera.) 


founder  of  the  Papacy,  and  if  the  P^mperor  Constan- 
tine,  by  removing^  the  seat  of  government  to  the 
Golden  Horn,  had  left  it  room  in  which  to  expand, 
yet  the  marvellous  apparition  of  Mohammed,  and 
the  conquests  of  his  lieutenants  or  successors,  broke 


O  ORIGINS 

the  power  of  the  Christian  East,  and  in  so  doing 
allowed  the  West  time  to  develop  without  hindrance 
on  its  own  lines.  The  Caliphate  bears,  indeed,  more 
than  one  point  of  resemblance,  external  at  least,  to 
the  dynasty  of  the  Vicars  of  Christ  established  in 
Rome.  But  it  is  the  long  series  of  invasions,  strip- 
ping off  province  after  province  from  the  weak 
Emperors  of  Byzantium,  laying  waste  the  churches 
of  Syria  and  Egypt,  reducing  the  Patriarchates  of 
Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Jerusalem  to  barren  names, 
and  thus  abolishing  the  older  forms  of  the  Christian 
polity,  which  we  have  now  in  view.  Straightway, 
the  fame  and  consequence  of  the  one  remaining 
Patriarch  who  dated  from  Apostolic  times  must  have 
been  indefinitely  enhanced.  The  Pope  became,  as  a 
great  Catholic  genius  has  written,  "  heir  by  default " 
of  antiquity.  Those  Sees,  and,  above  all,  the  See  of 
Alexandria,  which  had  shared  with  him  in  political 
prestige,  and  could  never  be  denied  a  voice  when 
there  was  question  of  dogma  or  discipline,  had  passed 
for  ever  beneath  the  Moslem  yoke.  And  the  Bishop 
of  Constantinople  was  but  the  Emperor's  chaplain, 
incapable  of  pursuing  a  course  for  himself — the 
nominee,  the  puppet,  and  sometimes  the  prisoner  of 
one  who  claimed  in  his  own  person  to  be  most  sacred, 
a  Divine  delegate,  and  a  god  on  earth.  In  Rome 
the  Bishop  had  no  rival  or  second.  Fie  tended  more 
and  more  to  become  what  Caesar  had  been  of  old, 
the  embodied  city,  with  all  its  mysterious  charm,  its 
predestination  to  supreme  command,  its  unique  and 
indelible  character  as  a  shrine  or  temple  of  deity. 
From  the  seventh  century  onwards,  Rome  appeared 


PAPACY   AGAINST   ISLAM  9 

in  men's  eyes  to  be  the  Apostolic  See  par  excellence. 
So  much,  unwittingly,  had  the  Arabian  prophet  or 
impostor  brought  to  pass  when  his  armed  disciples 
overran  the  many  thousand  bishoprics  of  Asia  and 
Africa. 

An  hour  there  was  when  Islam  appeared  likely  to 
conquer  not  only  the  Spanish  but  the  Prankish 
Catholics.  Mussulman  armies  crossed  the  Pyrenees  ; 
they  came  north  as  far  as  Tours  ;  but  Charles  Martel 
in  a  bloody  battle  drove  them  south  again.  Yet 
could  not  the  unhappy  and  degenerate  Popes  of  the 
ninth  or  tenth  century  do  much  to  repel  their  incur- 
sions. Under  Leo  IV.  (in  855)  they  came  up  to  the 
walls  of  Rome  and  sacked  St.  Peter's — an  amazing 
feat,  of  which  the  Lednine  City  is  to  this  day  a 
monument  and  witness.  But  no  sooner  did  the 
Holy  See  recover  from  its  low  estate  than  Gregory 
VII.  set  his  undaunted  mind  to  inaugurate  against 
them  a  Sacred  War — for  Hildebrand,  as  he  is  the 
restorer  of  the  Medieval  Papacy,  is  likewise  the 
author  of  the  First  Crusade.  It  was  now  Pope 
against  Caliph  during  nearly  two  hundred  years. 
Yet  the  conquest  of  the  Holy  Land,  soon  won  and 
in  a  short  episode  lost,  was  by  no  means  the  chief 
gain  to  Rome  of  these  world-famous  expeditions. 
From  them  we  date  the  extensive  and  permanent 
taxing-powers,  enforced  all  over  Christendom,  which 
the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  insisted  upon  as  their  rights, 
the  Pope  being,  so  to  speak,  generalissimo  of  the 
armies  of  the  Cross.  This  war-tribute,  levied  on 
such  a  preamble,  but  constantly  applied  to  purposes 
of  another,  and  sometimes  an  indefensible  kind,  while 


lO  ORIGINS 

it  enriched  the  Holy  See,  gave  rise  to  murmurings, 
and  at  last  to  rebellions  which,  like  that  under  John 
Wyclif,  assailed  the  Papacy  itself.  It  is  not  untrue 
to  assert  that  from  the  Crusades,  which  in  their 
beginnings  heightened  so  greatly  the  Roman  power, 
sprang  the  first  attempts  at  a  Reformation. 

We  can  now  define,  almost  in  a  phrase,  the 
splendid  but  simple  theme  which  we  have  under- 
taken. Let  us  state  it.  How,  we  inquire,  did  the 
Pontifex  Maximus,  heir  of  old  Rome  and  now  its 
Christian  Bishop,  deal  with  the  peoples  which 
invaded  and  occupied  the  Western  Empire  ?  And 
how  did  they  deal  with  him  ?  Broadly  speaking,  we 
find  ourselves  in  presence  of  three  great  world-facts 
or  forces — the  Roman,  the  Christian,  the  Teutonic. 
From  these  three  modern  civilisation  is  derived. 
Their  contest  fills  the  Middle  Ages  ;  their  reconcile- 
ment in  a  purified  Church  and  a  Catholic  Empire 
was  the  dream  of  Dante  ;  but  the  poet's  own  time 
marks  the  epoch  when  Teutons,  despairing  of  Rome 
as  they  saw  it,  turned  back  to  their  national 
aspirations,  and  when  the  North  was  already  begin- 
ning to  be  rent  from  the  South,  as  the  Ten  Tribes 
from  the  Kingdom  of  Judah.  This  parallel,  which  is 
no  less  exact  than  profound,  might  be  carried  out 
into  most  significant  details.  It  will  help  us  to 
understand  the  rise,  the  decline,  and  the  everlasting 
attitude  towards  the  German  races  of  a  spiritual 
power  which  was  clad  in  forms  coming  down  to  it 
from  a  period  long  antecedent  to  Christianity,  and 
from  nations  like  the  Etruscan  or  the  Greek  no  less 
than  the  Hebrew. 


ROMAN   EMPIRE    TRANSFORMED  II 

Until  of  late  years,  the  immeasurable  event  known 
as  the  "  Conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire  "  has  been 
much  misunderstood.  We  ought  rather  to  call  it 
a  transformation  ;  elements  and  institutions  already 
existing  were  brought  under  the  influence  of  a  few 
far-reaching  ideals,  and  of  a  Personality  recognised 
as  the  Divine  Incarnation  of  these.  The  old  Roman 
life  was  not  broken  up  and  made  over  again".  While 
Christians  refused  to  be  idolaters,  they  did  not,  as  so 
many  historians,  including  Gibbon,  have  taken  for 
granted,  decline  to  share  in  the  public  or  private 
dignities,  or  to  tolerate  a  multitude  of  harmless 
customs,  which  they  found  in  use.  Vehement  pole- 
mical writers,  like  the  fiery  Tertullian,  exaggerate  a 
nonconformity  which  at  all  times  must  have  been 
tempered  by  concessions  to  the  circumstances  of 
every  day ;  while  the  remains  we  still  possess,  from 
at  least  the  third  century,  prove  that  we  may  not 
charge  upon  converted  Romans  a  disdain  for  the  arts, 
the  usages,  or  the  business  to  which,  as  subjects  of 
the  Empire  or  citizens  of  the  Capital,  they  had  been 
accustomed.  Their  theological  system  underwent  a 
change  ;  their  religion,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
word,  was  baptized  into  a  new  life ;  but  they  took 
over  (and  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?)  the  language, 
the  ritual,  the  yearly  observances,  the  festal  adorn- 
ments, and  even  the  artistic  symbols,  to  which  they 
had  been  brought  up.  Whatever  Puritan  dislike  to 
paintings  and  feastings  of  the  Roman  pattern  had 
been  nurtured  in  the  Jewish  Ghetto  on  the  Janiculum, 
Christians  in  no  long  time  must  have  laid  it  aside. 
Not  many  of  them  in  the  third  century  were  Israelite 


1 2  ORIGINS 

even  by  descent.  And  Tertullian  himself,  who  stands 
for  the  less  accommodating  principles,  is  our  witness 
that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  (probably  Zephyrinus,  about 
216)  was  not  unwilling  to  be  known  as  "  Episcopus 
•Episcoporum  "  and  "  Pontifex  Maximus." 

The  Roman  would  be  a  Christian  ;  but  he  would 
not  improvise  either  language  or  ritual  when  he  found 
them  ready  to  his  hand.  What  he  did  was  to  cleanse 
them  of  their  idolatrous  associations,  to  combine  them 
more  or  less  skilfully  with  the  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament  and  the  personages  and  stories  of  the  Old, 
until  a  Catholic  Hierarchy  and  a  Christian  Liturgy 
rose  into  sight,  sustaining  each  other  in  a  majestic 
and  almost  overpowering  adaptation  of  outward  to 
inward,  of  spirit  to  symbol,  and  of  authority  to 
doctrine.  This  was  no  sudden  creation,  but  a  slow 
and  imperceptible  growth  of  time,  extending  over 
five  or  six  hundred  years,  so  complete  at  length  that 
as  in  Pope  Leo  I.' we  may  contemplate  the  Romulus, 
so  in  Gregory  the  Great  we  discern  the  not  unkingly 
Numa,  of  a  city  more  sacred  than  the  antique  Rome, 
yet  hardly  less  imperial.  Almost  every  step  of  this 
transmuting  process  can  be  followed  when  we  pass 
out  from  the  less  lightsome  centuries  of  the  Christian 
origins.  The  Church  in  the  West  was  to  develop 
under  the  style  of  the  Pontifex  Maximus,  in  accord- 
ance with  old  Roman  sacred  rites,  and  by  the  strength 
of  the  Roman  Law.  St.  Peter  was  to  inherit  all  that 
Numa  could  bequeath,  and  to  hand  it  down  along  the 
line  of  his  successors. 

This  word  "  Pontifex  " — meaning  the  sacrificer  on 
the   bridge — was    associated    from   very   early  times 


THE   PONTIFEX   MAXIMUS  I  3 

with  ceremonies  in  honour  or  deprecation  of  the 
dead,  whom  the  Romans  called  Lemures.  The  feast 
of  the  Lemuralia  was  kept  on  the  Sublician  Bridge, 
which  spanned  the  Tiber  between  Aventine  and 
Janiculum,  during  the  9th,  nth,  and  13th  of  May. 
Customary  rites  were  performed,  after  which  "  the 
pontifices,  vestals,  praetors,  and  other  citizens,"  accord- 
ing to  the  Greek  writer,  Dionysius,  cast  into  the 
stream  thirty  figures,  named  ''  Argei,"  or  "  Argive 
men,"  made  of  bulrushes  and  in  the  human  shape. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  these  "  priscorum 
simulacra  virorum "  were  a  substitute  for  live  men 
once  offered  to  propitiate  the  ghosts  of  the  departed ; 
as  the  legend  says,  they  were  invented  by  Hercules 
when  he  did  away  with  human  sacrifices  formerly 
made  at  that  spot  in  honour  of  Saturn.  But  a  custom 
with  which  these  Lemuralia  seem  to  bear  affinities 
— of  "  driving  out  "  or  "  casting  out "  Death,  at  the 
beginning  of  summer — has  been  traced  in  nearly 
every  part  of  Europe.  Here,  then,  is  the  most 
ancient  ritual  in  which  the  Pontifex  Maximus  comes 
before  our  view. 

Numa,  the  mythical  priest-king  of  Rome,  is  said 
by  Livy  to  have  appointed  a  college  of  four  pontiffs, 
at  the  head  of  which  was  the  Pontifex  Maximus.  In 
81  B.C.  the  number  was  raised  to  fifteen;  and  Julius 
Caesar,  who  was  himself  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  added 
to  it  another  when  he  returned  from  Egypt.  Under 
Augustus,  and  down  to  the  fall  of  Paganism,  the 
Emperor  always  held  the  title  ;  he  was  Pope  as  well 
as  Consul  and  Imperator.  He  continued  to  hold  it 
for  some  time  afterwards  ;  and  not  only  Constantine 


14  ORIGINS 

but  his  more  Christian  successors,  Valentinian  I.  and 
Gratian,  are  mentioned  under  this  name  on  inscrip- 
tions now  extant.  Theodosius,  however,  gave  up  all 
pretence  to  be  the  High  Priest  of  a  heathen  \vorship  ; 
and  the  title  passed  to  the  Bishops  of  Rome,  for  whose 
office  it  must  have  long  seemed  a  fitting  designation. 

We  learn  from  Festus,  a  Latin  writer  before  400, 
that  the  old  Roman  pontiffs  were  looked  upon  as 
"  rerum  quae  ad  sacra  et  religiones  pertinent,  judices 
et  viiidkes  "  ;  they  judged  and  defended  the  interests 
of  religion  at  large.  They  ranked  above  all  other 
priests,  and  regulated  the  general  worship  of  the 
gods.  To  them,  it  was  said,  Numa  had  entrusted 
the  sacred  "  libri  pontificales,"  in  which  were  set  down 
the  lawful  rites  of  sacrifice,  dedication,  and  augur- 
ship,  with  their  unchanging  formulas.  They  were  to 
guard  against  the  decay  of  worship  and  the  bringing 
in  of  strange  gods  and  mysteries,  such  as  those  of 
Bacchus,  Isis,  and  Serapis,  which  caused  so  much 
trouble  at  various  times  in  Rome.  Another,  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  very  primitive  department  of  their 
duties  was  concerned  with  the  dead — how  funerals 
were  to  be  carried  out ;  by  what  expiations  the 
Manes,  or  the  souls  of  the  departed  were  to  be  given 
rest.  They  interpreted  the  heavenly  signs  of  thunder 
and  lightning.  The  times  of  the  festivals  were  in 
their  keeping,  and  they  regulated  the  Calendar. 
Julius  Caisar,  in  his  capacity  as  Pontifex  Maximus, 
reformed  it  in  46  B.C.  And  Pope  Gregory  XIII., 
under  the  same  title,  reformed  it  again  by  his  Bull 
of  February  24,   1582. 

Since  the  Pontiffs  were  not  subject  to  any  court  of 


CONFESSION   OR   TOMB   OF  ST.    I'ETER   IN   THE   VATICAN    BASILICA. 


1 6  ORIGINS 

law,  neither  to  the  Senate  nor  the  People,  we  may 
accurately  describe  them  as  exempt  from  secular 
jurisdiction.  But  they  had  their  own  courts,  to  which 
not  only  priests  but  other  individuals  and  even  magis- 
trates were  bound  to  submit,  in  all  that  related  to 
religion.  Over  the  Vestal  virgins  they  had  and 
exercised  criminal  jurisdiction.  Where  existing 
laws  did  not  suffice  to  determine  the  matter,  they 
made  fresh  rules  which  were  called  "  Decrees  of  the 
Pontiffs."  The  Supreme  Pontiff  was  present  at  the 
most  solemn  kind  of  marriage,  known  as  confar- 
reatio.  He  lived  in  a  house  which  had  the  sanctity 
of  a  temple,  on  the  Via  Sacra,  not  far  from  that  of 
the  Vestals,  until  the  Imperial  palace  became  his 
home.  He  received  the  solemn  vows  of  games  and 
other  dedications,  whether  by  the  State  or  private 
persons  ;  and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  he  used  some 
discernment  in  allowing  them  ;  he  had  most  probably 
a  dispensing  power.  Like  all  pontiffs,  he  wore  the 
toga  prcetextata  and  a  conical  cap,  called  the  galei-us 
(which  is  a  name  now  appropriated  to  the  Cardinal's 
hat)  with  a  wooden  apex  fastened  to  it.  He  could 
not,  in  Republican  times,  leave  Italy.  Last  of  all, 
the  duty  was  incumbent  on  him  of  appointing  the 
six  Vestals  and  the  Plamens,  or  particular  priests,  of 
Jupiter,  Mars,  Quirinus,  and  other  gods. 

It  was  the  boast  of  Cicero,  and  Virgil's  almost 
hieratic  poem  of  the  y^neid  bears  him  out,  that  the 
Romans  were  a  deeply  religious  people.  This  does 
not  signify  that  they  cultivated  a  speculative  theology, 
or  that  their  morals  were  austere  and  their  lives 
devoted    to    well-doing ;    but  that   they   observed    a 


57-.    PETER    IN    ROME  1/ 

ritual  which  left  untouched  no  act  of  their  pubHc  or 
private  existence.  The  gods  had  no  concern  with 
virtue  ;  that  was  a  man's  own  acquisition  ;  but  they 
watched  over  birth,  marriage,  death  ;  over  war  and 
peace ;  over  agriculture  and  commerce ;  they  conse- 
crated oaths  and  treaties,  and  avenged  their  violation  ; 
they  were  pledged  to  the  prosperity  of  the  State. 
Before  every  public  undertaking  they  must  be  con- 
sulted. Certain  sacred  relics,  the  nature  of  which 
could  only  be  guessed  at,  were  tokens  of  their  amity 
preserved  by  the  Vestals  in  a  secret  shrine,  before 
which  burned  the  "  everlasting  fire."  Rome,  as  it 
extended  its  conquests,  brought  home  the  vanquished 
deities ;  it  became  "  the  temple  and  the  shrine  of  all 
gods,"  but  above  them  towered  on  his  hill  Jupiter 
Capitolinus,  and  the  polytheism  of  the  nations  was 
rapidly  merging  into  a  Divine  Monarchy,  of  which 
Caesar  appeared  to  be  the  visible  image,  the  Vicar  on 
Earth,  when  Christians  began  to  preach  their  glad 
tidings  in  the  Jewish  Ghetto,  over  against  the  Porta 
Portese,  and  in  the  region  still  known  as  "  across  the 
Tiber." 

At  what  exact  period  this  came  to  pass  we  have 
no  means  of  ascertaining.  Was  it  within  ten  or 
twelve  years  from  the  death  of  Christ,  or  something- 
later  ?  An  early  tradition  associates  it  with  St. 
Peter's  arrival  in  Rome  and  the  year  42  A.D.,  which 
Eusebius  takes  for  the  starting-point  of  his  bishopric  ; 
or,  to  quote  the  stronger  Latin  of  St.  Jerome,  at 
that  date  "  Peter  is  sent  to  Rome,  where,  preaching 
the  Gospel  twenty-five  years,  he  remains  Bishop  of 
the  same  city."     But   on  what   primitive  testimony 

3 


1 8  ORIGINS 

this  length  of  years  was  stated,  it  is  impossible  to 
conjecture.  In  58  A.D.  St.  Paul  wrote  his  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  when  a  Church  already  existed,  some 
members  of  which  belonged  to  Caesar's  household. 
Three  years  later  he  was  living  at  Rome  in  his  own 
hired  house,  preaching  to  those  who  came  about  him. 
The  severest  critics  are  willing  to  allow  a  journey  of 
St.  Peter  to  the  Capital  in  64,  when  he  dated  his  First 
Epistle  from  Babylon,  that  is  to  say,  from  heathen, 
persecuting  Rome,  as  the  Sibylline  books  of  Jewish 
origin  had  long  ago  named  it.  To  the  martyrdom 
of  Peter  and  Paul  under  Nero  there  is  abundant 
witness,  beginning  with  Clement  (95  or  96),  who 
speaks  of  the  "  good  Apostles  "  (which  implies  that 
he  knew  them  personally),  and  dwells  on  their  suffer- 
ings. No  explanation  of  the  reference  in  St.  John's 
Gospel  to  Peter's  death  has  ever  been  suggested,  save 
that  he  was  crucified  in  his  old  age,  and,  as  tradition 
affirms,  close  to  the  spot  where  his  tomb  in  the  early 
third  century  could  be  pointed  out  by  Gains  the 
Presbyter,  who  writes  (about  220),  "  I  can  show  thee 
the  trophies  [or  relics]  of  the  Apostles.  For  if  thou 
wilt  go  to  the  Vatican  or  the  Ostian  Way,  thou  wilt 
find  the  trophies  of  those  who  founded  this  Church." 
And  among  his  disciples  in  Rome  Peter  had  "  Marcus 
my  son,"  his  interpreter — whom  he  sent  by  and  by  to 
Alexandria- — as  likewise  Silvanus.  Paul,  we  know 
for  certain,  had  about  him  when  there  Timothy,  Titus, 
Luke,  Apollos.  If  a  doubtful  story  could  be  accepted 
which  Tertullian  relates  concerning  the  Apostle 
John — he  was  said  to  have  undergone  a  trial  at  Rome 
in  the  reign  of  Domitian — this  Church  would  have 


SUCCESSION   OF    THE    POPES  1 9 

beheld   the   chiefest  of   Christ's    followers,   and   the 
writers  of  three  out  of  the  four  Gospels. 

During  the  second  century,  Ignatius  of  Antioch, 
who  was  martyred  between  lOO  and  ii8  A.D. ;  Papias 
about  130;  Dionysius  of  Corinth  in  170;  Irenaeus, 
some  twenty  years  later;  and  the  Muratorian  Frag- 
ment ascribed  to  Hippolytus  towards  190,  confirm 
these  scattered  notices,  which  connect  Peter  with 
Rome  as  founding  the  Church  and  dying  there  in 
a  time  of  persecution.  In  like  manner,  the  lists  of 
Roman  Bishops  carry  us  back  to  Peter  and  Paul, 
who  stand  at  their  head.  Five  such  catalogues  are 
extant,  clouded  over  with  errors  of  transcription,  but 
when  duly  revised,  in  agreement  as  regards  the  names, 
years,  and  order,  which  last  has  been  preserved  in  the 
Latin  Canon  of  the  Mass.  Hegesippus,  a  Jewish 
Christian,  writing  about  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  drew  up  a  list  on  the  spot,  now  probably 
accessible  in  Epiphanius  (375).  Irenaeus  of  Lyons, 
who  paid  a  visit  to  Rome  after  177,  gives  us  his  own 
catalogue.  A  third,  due  to  Hippolytus,  may  be 
recovered  from  the  Liberian,  edited  under  the  Pope 
of  that  name.  On  these  and  on  Julius  Africanus, 
Eusebius  relied  in  his  Chronicle  and  History. 
Irenaeus  appeals  to  "  the  greatest,  oldest,  and  uni- 
versally known  Church,  founded  and  established  by 
the  most  glorious  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul  at  Rome." 
And  he  says  that  they  "  delivered  the  office  of  the 
Episcopate  to  Linus."  The  order,  now  recognised  by 
experts,  is  therefore  Linus,  Anencletus,  Clement, 
Euarestus,  Alexander,  Xystus,  and  so  forth.  That 
these  names  represent  historical  persons,  who  were 


50  ORIGINS 

"bishops,  in  the  monarchical  sense,  of  the  Roman 
Church,"  is  admitted  by  the  most  competent  scholars 
ofourday,  and  may  be  safely  assumed.  Of  Clement's 
"  noble  remonstrance,"  addressed  to  the  Corinthian 
schismatics,  Lightfoot  has  declared  that  it  was  "  the 
first  step  towards  Papal  domination."  He  regards 
the  action  of  Victor,  which  he  disapproves,  at  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  when  that  Pope  excom- 
municated the  Churches  of  Asia,  as  a  "  decided  step  " 
forward.  When  Ignatius  looks  up  to  the  Roman 
Church  as  "  presiding  in  love,"  this,  observes  Light- 
foot,  bears  witness  to  its  moral  ascendency,  which 
was  "the  historical  foundation  of  its  primacy." 
Cardinal  Newman,  as  we  might  expect,  takes  a 
loftier  view  :  "  It  seems  to  me  plain  from  history," 
he  tells  us,  "  that  the  Popes  from  the  first  considered 
themselves  to  have  a  universal  jurisdiction."  It  is 
indisputable,  to  say  the  least,  that  before  the  year 
200,  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was  recognised  everywhere 
as  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  and  not  only  as  head  of 
the  local  Church,  but  in  some  degree — to  speak  with 
the  Clementine  Romance — as  presiding  over  Christen- 
dom. 


II 


FROM   PETER   TO   LEO   THE   GREAT 


(67-461) 


But  our  first  glimpses,  which  are  tantalising  in 
their  brevity,  of  the  Christians  at  Rome,  show  us  the 
Church  rather  than  the  Bishop.  Clement  admonishes 
the  Corinthians  in  its  name,  not  in  his  own  ;  Ignatius 
of  Antioch,  if  his  epistle  be  authentic,  addresses  "  the 
Church  presiding  in  charity  in  the  country  of  the 
Romans  "  ;  and  Pope  Soter  speaks  as  representing  a 
community  so  late  as  170  A.D.  Thus  the  Bishop  did 
not  stand  alone  ;  like  the  Pontifex  Maximus  he  w^as 
head  of  a  College  of  clergy  ;  and  the  Roman  Church, 
by  its  central  position  in  the  world's  Capital  ;  by  its 
beneficent  use  of  the  wealth  which  it  soon  acquired  ; 
and  by  its  familiarity  wdth  the  laws  and  even  the 
fashions  of  the  Metropolis ; — was  marked  out  for  dis- 
tinction as  the  Christian  system  moulded  itself  on  the 
Imperial,  and  Bishops  fell  into  their  places,  according 
to  the  importance  of  the  cities  over  which  they  ruled. 
Not  even  Jerusalem  could  have  resisted  a  movement 


22       FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

SO  natural  and  widespread  ;  but  the  Jewish  war  had 
made  an  end  of  Jerusalem ;  and  what  other  city  could 
vie  with  Rome  ?  By  the  year  274,  Aurelian  is  found 
deciding  that  the  Christian  Church  property  at 
Antioch,  which  was  in  dispute,  shall  be  dealt  with  as 
the  Bishops  of  Rome  and  Italy  think  fit.  Cyprian  of 
Carthage,  in  256,  recognises  that  Rome  is  the  Chair 
of  Peter,  "whence  the  unity  of  the  priesthood  took  its 
rise."  These  words,  and  this  conception,  were  to 
furnish  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  Papacy.  For  the 
Popes  attribute  to  themselves  all  that  the  "  Prince  of 
the  Apostles"  would  claim, were  he  living  on  through 
the  centuries.  They  fuse  into  one  great  idea  the 
spiritual  prerogatives  of  their  founder  and  the  legal 
supremacy  of  Rome  over  the  whole  Empire.  Rome 
can  be  second  to  none  ;  St.  Peter  is  the  first  among 
his  brethren.  If  the  Churches  of  the  world  ever  came 
into  the  form  of  a  confederation  or  a  Hierarchy,  and 
they  tended  to  do  so  from  their  earliest  days,  the 
Roman  Church  would  of  necessity  be  supreme. 

As  we  see  in  Clement,  the  old  and  deeply-ingrained 
conception  of  law  and  order,  which  is  distinctively 
Roman,  had  passed  over  at  once  into  the  Christian 
mind.  These  converts,  whether  Jews  or  Pagans,  did 
not  indulge  in  speculation ;  they  started  no  new 
philosophy ;  and  such  has  been  the  character  of  the 
Church  in  Rome  ever  since.  It  dealt  with  practice, 
ritual,  discipline  ;  it  developed  a  government,  not  a 
school  like  Alexandria ;  it  held  aloof  from  the  wide 
and  remarkable  effort  of  the  Gnostics,  or  "  Intellec- 
tuals," who  attempted  during  the  second  century  to 
resolve  the  tenets  of  the  Gospel   into  a  theosophic 


< 

W 

a 
o 

a 


24  FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

romance.  The  Latin  mind  neither  comprehended 
nor  was  drawn  to  these  dreams  of  an  Orientalised 
Greek  fancy.  In  like  manner,  as  it  was  averse  to  the 
speculations  of  the  philosophers,  so  was  the  Roman 
Church  unwilling  to  narrow  the  bounds  of  conformity 
by  a  regimen  too  severe  for  the  multitudes,  who  were 
now  thronging  about  its  doors.  It  would  not  permit 
an  esoteric  creed  to  split  up  the  congregation  of  the 
faithful  into  "enlightened"  and  "ignorant."  It  refused 
to  shut  out  sinners  from  its  penance,  as  the  unbending 
Montanists  and  Novatians  demanded.  While  con- 
servative in  doctrine,  it  exhibited  a  sagacious  largeness 
in  discipline,  and  while  suffering  the  strongly  forensic 
mind  of  Tertullian  to  model  its  tradition,  it  neither 
approved  nor  condemned  the  venturesome  thought  of 
Origen  and  the  Alexandrian  Clement.  None  of  the 
early  Popes  were  masters  or  pupils  in  philosophy ; 
but  this  negative  wisdom  counted  for  not  a  little  in 
the  respect  which  was  paid  to  them  by  the  subtle  and 
restless  East. 

Not  individual  genius,  therefore,  but  an  endemic 
"custom  of  the  City,"  acting  on  a  creed  not  fully 
developed,  and  in  the  strength  of  what  was  allowed  to 
be  Apostolic  tradition,  enabled  this  Church  at  the 
centre  to  grow  in  pre-eminence.  It  gave  no  theo- 
logians to  Christendom  ;  it  prodticed  neither  monks 
nor  thinkers;  in  the  list  of  thirty-two  Popes  before 
Constantine,  there  is  only  a  single  illustrious  name, 
that  of  Clement.  But  with  the  fourth  century  we 
enter  on  a  new  era.  The  Imperial  Government  takes 
the  cross  and  begins  by  its  laws  and  policy  to  make 
the    Empire  Christian.     Constantinople  is   founded ; 


LAW,    NOT  SPECULATION,    ROMAN  25 

Rome  ceases  to  be  the  capital.  And  an  interminable 
succession  of  quarrels  on  the  philosophy  of  the  Creed, 
associated  for  ever  with  the  names  of  Arius,  Apollin- 
aris,  Macedonius,  Nestorius,  and  Eutyches,  rends  the 
East  into  factions,  the  Pope  looking  on  from  afar,  not 
entangling  himself  in  the  nets  of  metaphysicians, 
receiving  appeals  from  all  sides,  sitting  umpire  in  the 
midst  of  a  theological  chaos.  Had  he  played  the 
philosopher,  humanly  speaking,  he  might  have  gone 
astray.  But  the  Pontifex  Maximus  was  a  Roman 
and  a  statesman.  He  left  to  others  the  wrangling 
over  terms  of  Greek  art ;  for  him  it  was  enough  to 
insist  upon  what  had  been  handed  down.  These 
gladiatorial  displays  of  logic  went  on  for  well-nigh  a 
hundred  and  seventy  years,  during  which  time  the 
only  Pope  who  furnished  a  statement  of  any  length  to 
the  combatants  was  Leo  I. ;  and  his  manner  is  the 
Roman,  sententious  and  judicial,  not  argumentative. 
The  Latin  language,  copious  in  legal  phrase,  abound- 
ing in  the  technicalities  of  ritual,  was  neither  delicate 
nor  flexible  enough  to  express  the  finer  shades  of 
heresy.  It  was  the  language  of  command  :  strong, 
plain,  and  matter  of  fact.  The  Eastern  Bishops 
degenerated  into  sophists  ;  the  Roman  found  himself 
a  ruler  in  a  deserted  but  always  august  city. 

Though  long  incorporated  with  the  Empire,  Gaul, 
Spain,  and  Germany  had  never  exerted  the  political 
influence  which  was  a  characteristic  of  the  Latin 
races  ;  nor  could  they  pretend  to  the  charm,  or  contest 
the  supremacy,  of  Greek  culture.  Outlying  provinces, 
on  the  extreme  line  of  defence,  they  lay  open  to 
attacks  from  the  wandering  tribes  of  the  North.     At 


26       FROM  PETER    TO  LEO    THE   GREAT 

Treves  or  Milan  the  Emperor  lived  in  camp ;  he  was 
at  home  only  in  Central  Italy,  or  in  the  stately 
Eastern  cities,  like  Nicomedia,  which  displayed  the 
riches,  the  polish,  and  too  often  the  luxurious  softness 
that  were  an  inheritance  from  classic  Hellas.  Taken 
as  a  whole,  the  East  was  compact  in  its  geography, 
it  had  boundless  resources  of  wealth,  and  could  draw 
upon  the  mountaineers  of  the  Balkans  or  the  Cilician 
Taurus  to  recruit  its  armies  ;  it  could  even  make  good 
use  of  Goths  and  other  untamed  auxiliaries,  without 
falling  a  prey  to  their  strong  right  arm.  Considera- 
tions such  as  these  weighed  with  the  sagacious  but 
hardly  great  Emperor  Constantine,  when  he  turned 
the  course  of  the  Roman  eagles  towards  the  rising 
sun  and  left  the  Eternal  City  shorn  of  its  crown  of 
dominion.  Henceforth,  East  and  West  would  go 
their  several  ways.  Europe  was  to  be  Latin,  Prankish, 
German,  in  its  political  forms ;  in  religion  it  was  to 
be  Papal  and  Protestant ;  while  the  Greeks  became 
more  and  more  Asiatic,  and  detested  their  Christian 
brethren,  the  Franks,  almost  as  deeply  as  they 
feared  the  armed  disciples  of  Mohammed. 

Modern  historians  have  seen  in  the  founding  of 
Constantinople  (330  A.D.)  a  necessary  sequel  to  the 
Edict  of  Toleration,  published  from  Milan  in  313,  by 
which  the  Christian  Faith  was  made  one  of  the 
religiones  licitcB.  The  Emperor  could  not  have  laid 
the  foundation  of  his  new  Church  and  State  on  the 
Palatine,  which  was  still  the  headquarters  of  Pagan- 
ism. Arguments,  these,  of  politicians,  plausible 
enough;  but  in  the  Middle  Ages  legend  threw  the 
motives  of  Constantine  into  a  picturesque  and  grue- 


LEGEND    OF   CONSTANTINE  27 

some  story,  to  the  glorification  of  Pope  Silvester  and 
the  Holy  Apostles.  Leprosy,  that  mysterious  and 
almost  sacred  disease,  had  laid  its  taint  upon  the 
Emperor  ;  he  was  tempted  to  cleanse  himself  in  a 
bath  of  children's  blood  ;  when  Silvester,  warned  in  a 
dream,  stepped  between  him  and  this  awful  experi- 
ment ;  persuaded  him  to  descend  into  the  waters  of 
baptism  ;  and  brought  him  out  thence,  purified  like 
Naaman  in  body  and  soul.  Hereupon,  Constantine 
made  over  to  the  Pontiff  Rome  and  Italy,  with  the 
Islands  of  the  West.  He  established  the  Pope  where 
Augustus  had  reigned,  gave  him  the  tokens  and  state 
of  royalty,  and  withdrew  from  the  Holy  Place.  This 
was  the  Donation  of  Constantine,  as  first  told  in  the 
eighth  century,  and  believed  down  to  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth. 

It  is  a  prophecy  after  the  event.  Paganism, 
abandoned  and  soon  to  be  persecuted  by  its  Pontifex 
Maximus,  without  the  conviction  that  makes  martyrs, 
and  long  a  hollow  formality,  was  dying.  Christians 
had  the  State  in  their  hands.  What  was  more,  they 
showed  the  fiery  zeal,  the  proselytizing  spirit,  the 
exuberance  in  quarrels  among  themselves,  which  are 
signs  of  a  youth  rich  in  hopes,  bent  upon  shaping  its 
own  victorious  future.  Heathen  Rome  invited  them  to 
subdue  it.  Public  policy  required  that  the  centre  of 
administration  should  be  at  the  heart  of  the  Empire. 
The  balance  of  power  was  displaced.  Neither  Pope 
Silvester  nor  any  Pope  for  centuries  dreamt  of  dis- 
owning the  Imperial  rule  ;  from  the  Goths  in  Italy 
they  suffered  grievous  things  as  the  first  subjects  of 
Constantinople.     But  Rome  left  to  itself  was  Rome 


28        FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

in  the  hands  of  the  Papacy,  fronting  the  West  and  the 
Barbarians.  Constantine  had  imitated  Alexander  the 
Great,  who,  in  setting  up  his  throne  at  Babylon  in 
330  B.C. — a  curious  coincidence — and  assuming  the 
tiara,  left  Europe  free  to  follow  its  own  fortunes.  Such 
was  the  real  Donation,  not  understood  at  the  time  by 
Pope  or  Emperor,  which  never  lost  its  force  until  the 
Northern  nations  grew  into  a  world  as  rich,  as  culti- 
vated, and  as  haughtily  self-conscious,  as  the  Greek. 

Paganism,  it  may  be  briefly  said,  was  to  furnish 
Roman  Christianity  with  many  of  its  holiday  or  out- 
ward shows.  And  the  strange  phenomena  of  heresy 
were  to  bring  to  light  its  powers  of  government,  which, 
used  at  the  beginning  in  disputes  of  local  churches  or 
contending  sects,  were  afterwards  applied  to  provinces 
and  kingdoms.  The  Pope,  we  have  seen,  did  not 
affect  a  speculative  genius  ;  he  administered  rule — a 
busy  and  extensive  rule  in  so  frequented  a  place  as 
Rome — according  to  the  tradition  of  the  first  age  ;  he 
would  never  hear  of  innovations  on  the  Creed.  "  Let 
there  be  none  such,  but  only  what  has  been  delivered," 
said  Pope  Stephen  in  a  quaint  phrase  to  Cyprian  (254 
A.D.).  Now  the  heretical  movement,  dating  chiefly 
from  Antioch  and  the  Syrian  literalists,  was  an 
endeavour  to  lighten  the  difficulties  of  the  Creed  by 
bringing  down  its  "  mysteries "  to  the  capacity  of 
human  thought ;  a  process  at  all  times  foreign  to  the 
spirit  of  Rome.  For  Rome,  as  Dollinger  says,  "  took 
the  world  ready-made."  It  would  not  vex  itself  with 
philosophic  inquiries,  whether  in  its  former  heathen 
or  its  present  Christian  stage.  In  discipline  it  was 
accommodating,  in  dogma  inflexible,  and  this  from  of 


ROME    AND    TRADITION  29 

old.  When,  therefore,  conservative  Easterns,  such  as 
the  unconquerable  Athanasius,  the  golden-mouthed 
Chrysostom,  or  the  violent  Cyril,  looked  round  for 
help  in  their  struggle  with  the  party  of  Rationalism, 
it  was  a  matter  of  course  that  they  should  appeal  to 
Rome.  And  Rome  stood  by  them.  The  Pope  was 
at  a  safe  distance  from  Court ;  he  could  not  easily 
be  taken  or  sent  into  banishment  ;  his  unswerving 
attitude,  by  which  he  seemed  only  to  be  maintaining 
that  which  had  always  been  the  rule,  made  him 
respected  in  an  age  when  Bishops  lost  their  dignity 
by  engaging  in  hot  and  acrimonious  disputes.  It  is 
significant  that  the  three  Popes  who  have  proved 
embarrassing  to  Roman  apologists — Liberius,  Vigilius, 
and  Honorius — were  all  charged  with  innovation. 
There  was  never  any  danger  in  holding  to  what  had 
been  received.  Hence  the  Popes,  unlike  the  Eastern 
Fathers,  do  not  meet  the  arguments  of  heretics  with 
counter-arguments  ;  they  decide,  but  they  decline  to 
reason  the  matter  out.  They  attend  no  Councils,  if 
they  can  help  it,  away  from  the  Lateran.  The  only 
creeds  which  they  approve  are  those  of  Nicaea  in  325 
and  of  Constantinople  in  381.  Pope  Ccelestine  im- 
poses on  the  Council  of  Ephesus  (431)  his  own 
judgment  by  the  imperious  hands  of  Cyril ;  the  session 
begins  and  ends  in,  a  summer's  day.  Leo  the  Great 
sends  his  "  Tome,"  which  is  by  no  means  a  treatise, 
to  Chalcedon  (451),  and  with  the  open  assistance  of 
Emperor  and  Empress  compels  six  hundred  Bishops 
to  accept  it.  In  a  later  controversy,  Hormisdas  (519), 
relying  on  the  secular  arm,  makes  his  creed  law 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Asia  ;  it  is  sub- 


30       FROM  PETER    TO  LEO    THE    GREAT 

scribed,  or  acquiesced  in,  by  perhaps  two  thousand 
five  hundred  Bishops. 

But  all  the  writings  on  divinity  of  the  Roman 
Pontiffs  down  to  Gregory  the  Great  would  not 
fill  a  volume  of  considerable  size.  Even  where 
they  approve,  they  content  themselves  with  as  few 
words  as  possible.  Contrast  the  folios  of  Augustine, 
to  whom  they  were  benignant,  with  what  Innocent, 
Zosimus,  and  Ccelestine  did  not  write,  on  a  subject  so 
momentous  as  that  of  grace  and  free  will.  To  others 
they  resigned  the  task  of  explaining  or  defending 
Christian  truth  by  methods  adapted  to  the  intellect. 
They  put  down  heresy  by  cutting  off  the  heretic  from 
their  communion.  In  this  way,  Rome  exercised  the 
functions  of  a  Supreme  Court  of  Appeal,  and  its 
judgments  anticipated  those  of  the  General  Councils, 
which  were  held  in  the  Emperor's  presence  or  that  of 
his  lieutenant. 

We  cannot  describe  the  Popes  of  the  fourth 
century  as  men  of  rare  personal  qualities.  One  of 
them,  Damasus  (367-384),  has  some  features,  in  his 
tumultuous  election  and  his  worldly  pomp,  which 
forecast  the  days  of  Avignon  or  the  Renaissance. 
Another,  Siricius,  who  followed  him  immediately,  is 
the  first  of  whom  we  possess  any  genuine  Decretal, 
as  the  letters  were  styled  that  the  Roman  Chancery 
sent  to  Bishops  on  points  concerning  which  its  opinion 
was  asked.  Yet  the  Church  was  steadily  mounting 
towards  pre-eminence.  The  Latin  Fathers — this  is 
their  golden  age — could  not  but  magnify  it  by  their 
character,  their  eloquence,  and  their  achievements. 
Even    Cyprian,   who   a   hundred   years    earlier    had 


AMBROSE,   JEROME,    AUGUSTINE  3 1 

quarrelled  vehemently  with  Rome,  "  did  far  more," 
says  Milman,  "  to  advance  her  power  by  the  primacy 
which  he  assigned  to  St.  Peter,  than  he  impaired  it 
by  his  steady  and  disdainful  repudiation  of  her 
authority,  whenever  it  was  brought  to  the  test  of 
submission." 

But  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan  (375-398),  was  the 
most  saintly  of  Western  prelates — a  true  Roman 
born  out  of  due  time — and  his  reverence  for  the 
Apostolic  See,  during  a  long  pontificate,  summed 
itself  up  in  the  famous  expression,  imitated  from  the 
legists,  "  Where  is  Peter,  there  is  the  Church."  On 
this  classic  sentence  the  policy  of  excommunication, 
interdict,  and  even  deposition — which  is  the  story  of 
the  Middle  Ages — may  be  made  to  depend.  The 
language  of  Jerome  (342-420),  most  learned,  lively, 
and  provoking  of  the  Fathers,  is  identical  ;  and  he 
who  smiles  at  the  frivolous  elegance  of  Damasus  or 
his  clerics,  yet  cries  out  to  him,  "  I  am  with  thy 
blessedness,  that  is,  with  the  Chair  of  Peter."  When 
he  undertakes  his  immortal  work,  the  translation  of  the 
Bible,  it  is  with  the  approval  of  the  same  Pope  ;  and 
the  Vulgate,  which  was  the  Scripture  of  the  West  for 
nearly  twelve  hundred  years,  might  almost  be  reckoned 
among  the  genuine  Decretals.  Then  came  Augustine 
(354-430),  whose  inexhaustible  fertility  in  dispute 
never  drew  him  into  controversy  with  Rome,  though 
his  deep  or  ingenious  commentaries  on  received 
doctrine  were,  in  the  great  break-up  which  we  call 
the  Reformation,  turned  against  her  by  those  most 
resolute  enemies,  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Jansenius.  But 
Augustine  did  more  than  all  the  Fathers  to  lift  up  the 


32        FROM   PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

Papacy  as  on  a  visible  height — to  ideaHse  it  as  the 
new  Jerusalem  and  the  Christian  Sion — when  he  put 
forth  his  vision  of  the  City  of  God.  There  was  no 
place  known  to  men  except  Rome  which  could  fulfil 
so  large  and  sovereign  a  mission  ;  and  that  some  dis- 
tinct sanctuary  it  must  be,  the  Middle  Ages  would 
have  asserted  no  less  confidently  than  the  Greeks, 
who  beheld  the  temple  of  the  Sun,  not  in  the  open 
sky  above  them,  but  on  the  island  of  Delos  or  in  the 
mountain-gorges  of  Delphi. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  the  crowned  philosopher  and 
Stoic  (161-180),  had  in  a  touching  apostrophe  made 
invocation  to  the  "  dear  City  of  God,"  which  was  to 
embrace  all  mankind.  At  that  very  time  Christians 
were  beginning  to  define  their  own  society  as  the 
"  Catholic  Church,"  and  to  oppose  against  the  multi- 
tude of  Gnostic  rites  its  mystic  and  divine  unity.  It 
was  impossible  that  converts  from  heathenism  should 
lose  the  sentiment,  universal  since  Augustus,  that 
Rome  was  the  sacred  capital  of  a  world-wide  civilisa- 
tion, the  meeting-place  of  all  worships,  and  the  centre 
of  religion.  This  great  idea  can  never  have  died  out. 
Nor  would  it  fail  to  be  kept  alive  by  the  progress  of 
the  new  creed,  since  it  spread  from  the  Imperial 
cities  to  their  dependencies,  and  the  Roman  Province 
became  the  Metropolitan  circle,  with  bishops  occu- 
pying the  rank  of  prefects,  or  subordinate  to  them, 
on  the  lines  of  the  civil  organisation.  The  primitive 
Church  was  the  Empire  taken  a  second  time,  but  for 
spiritual  and  heavenly  purposes.  In  every  metro- 
polis, says  Bingham  (whose  evidence  has  stood  the 
test  of  modern  research),  as  there  was  a  magistrate 


THE   PATRIARCH   OF    THE    WEST  33 

over  the  magistrates  of  each  city,  so  there  was  a 
Bishop  over  the  local  bishops.  That  arrangement 
the  Council  of  Nica^a  confirmed.  Constantine  had 
new  modelled  the  Empire.  This  first  of  the  General 
Councils  (325)  acknowledged,  in  accordance  with  his 
dispositions,  three  great  Patriarchates — Rome,  Alex- 
andria, and  Antioch.  The  Bishop  of  Rome,  it 
observes  in  its  sixth  Canon,  already  exercised  his 
rights  over  "the  suburbican  churches,"  which  are 
understood  to  mean  the  churches  of  the  "  Diocese  of 
Italy."  What  the  Popes  did  actually  claim,  as  time 
went  on,  was  a  supreme  right  of  interference  in  the 
"Prefectures"  of  Italy,  in  the  two  Gauls,  which 
included  Spain,  and  in  Eastern  Illyricum.  Besides 
these  particular  jurisdictions,  of  which  the  last  was 
frequently  contested,  they  held,  as  appears  from 
Athanasius,  who  cites  a  letter  of  Julius  I.  to  this 
effect,  that  it  was  against  the  tradition  to  assemble 
councils  and  proceed  to  grave  resolutions  without 
their  concurrence.  All  this  betokens  a  close  and 
increasing  communion  among  the  different  local 
bodies  of  Christians.  It  is  the  old  Roman  vision  of 
a  world-empire  expanding  and  realising  itself  as  a 
Catholic  Church,  which  if  not  yet  governed  by  a 
Supreme  Head,  was  by  all  its  institutions  calling 
for  one. 

The  division  of  the  Empire,  which  followed  on 
Constantine's  death,  gave  this  problem  a  fresh  turn. 
Of  the  Easterns  it  must  be  said,  in  general,  that  they 
were  Erastians,  if  we  may  apply  the  language  of  the 
seventeenth  century  to  the  fourth.  In  the  Emperor 
they  owned   a    Divine    right    of  superintending   the 

4 


34  FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

Church  ;  he  was  a  kind  of  lay  Bishop,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  say  where  his  power  ended.  The 
secular  arm  executed  the  decrees  of  Councils,  drove 
heretics  into  exile,  and  through  all  the  controversies 
which  tore  Christendom  wielded  the  sword  of  the 
Lord.  It  seemed  a  conclusion  from  this  Old  Testa- 
ment view  that  the  Imperial  city  ought  to  share  in  its 
master's  prerogatives.  Constantinople,  which  as 
Byzantium  had  been  the  suffragan  of  Heraclea, 
would  not  submit  to  be  reckoned  among  the  inferior 
churches.  It  aspired  to  independence  ;  and  though  it 
dared  not  vie  with  "  Old  Rome  "  at  first,  it  elbowed 
aside  not  only  Antioch  but  the  ever-orthodox 
Alexandria,  and  boldly  insisted  on  taking  the  second 
place.  Nor,  as  was  shown  in  the  sequel,  did  it  pause 
when  that  was  attained.  Its  Patriarch,  John  the 
Faster,  wrote  himself  "  Universal  Bishop "  in  590. 
His  successors  are  still  denominated  "  (Ecumenical, " 
which  is  the  title  he  usurped  ;  but  neither  they  nor 
he  establish  their  claim  on  a  direct  descent  from  one 
of  the  Apostles.  The  ground  taken  was  frankly 
political ;  the  city  of  the  Emperor  must  be  supreme. 

In  two  General  Councils,  one  held  within  the  walls 
of  Constantinople  (381),  the  other  in  sight  of  its 
towers  and  palaces  at  Chalcedon  (451),  this  demand 
was  formulated  as  a  Canon,  or  rule  of  law.  The 
Popes,  without  losing  a  moment,  raised  the  cry  of 
alarm.  They  felt  the  danger  which  this  Erastian 
principle  would  bring  on  their  own  policy  of  inde- 
pendence and  freedom.  Damasus,  in  a  statement 
which  might  have  been  dictated  by  Hildebrand, 
asserts   emphatically   the   idea    to   be   henceforward 


BYZANTINE   PRETENSIONS  35 

echoed  in  every  tone  by  the  Apostolic  See.  To 
the  temporal  greatness  of  the  Empire  he  opposes 
(381)  the  voice  of  the  Lord  Himself,  who  has  given 
to  Rome  the  primacy  in  Peter.  It  owes  nothing  to 
synods  ;  it  is  above  all  other  Churches,  because  of 
the  text  in  the  Gospels.  Even  Alexandria  is  "  the 
second  See,"  as  being  "  consecrated  in  the  name  of 
Peter,"  through  his  disciple,  Mark  the  Evangelist ;  on 
a  like  account  Antioch  is  honourable,  "  for  Peter  took 
up  his  abode  there,  before  he  came  to  Rome." 

In  these  declarations,  and  in  the  acts  to  which  they 
were  an  answer,  we  note  the  beginnings  of  the  great 
schism  that  has  divided  the  East  from  the  West. 
Constantinople  is  Erastian  ;  Pope  Damasus  isNjLJltra-< 
montane.  The  answer  to  Constantinople  w^s  the 
Papal  Monarchy.  V 

Disputes  concerning  precedence  among  Bishops 
may  seem  the  vainest  of  quarrels  ;  but  we  cannot 
fail  to  perceive  that  the  races  of  men  and  the  systems 
of  philosophy  extant  within  the  Roman  Empire  were 
struggling  here  mightily  against  one  another,  like  the 
winds  on  the  great  sea  in  Daniel's  vision.  Egypt  had 
been  from  of  old  the  home  of  a  mystical  and  ascetic 
religion,  of  which  Neo-Platonism  and  the  Christian 
teachers  had  borrowed  as  much  as  they  would. 
Antioch  and  its  vast  dependencies  were  now  covered 
with  schools,  in  which  the  Greek  spirit  of  reasoning 
and  contention  exercised  full  sway.  To  this  side  Con- 
stantinople was  drawn  by  the  habits  of  its  indolent 
population  ;  but  though  they  welcomed  a  Syrian  of 
genius,  like  St.  John  Chrysostom,  in  their  Arch- 
bishop's chair,  they  would  not  submit  to  rank  below 


36       FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE   GREAT 

a  provincial  city  on  the  Orontes.  And  Rome,  which 
was  neither  given  with  the  Egyptians  to  ecstatic 
dreaming,  nor  involved  in  the  subtle  syllogisms  of 
the  Asian  Greeks,  but  which  held  fast  by  law  and 
tradition,  sided  now  with  one  of  these  parties  and  now 
with  another,  as  the  interests  of  orthodox  govern- 
ment demanded.  The  history  of  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries  does  but  exhibit  the  three  Eastern  capitals 
weakening  one  another  by  internecine  wranglings, 
with  their  accompaniments  of  riot  and  persecution, 
until  Syria  and  Egypt  lay  defenceless  before  Islam, 
and  Constantinople  trembled  within  her  sea-girt 
fortifications.  By  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great, 
the  two  Patriarchal  Churches  associated  with  the 
name  of  St.  Peter  had  almost  run  their  course.  Rome 
was  left  as  the  sole  Apostolic  See,  founded  on  the 
rock. 

We  may  watch  this  conception  growing  ever  more 
luminous  in  the  utterances  of  the  Pontiffs  themselves. 
It  was  to  be  strenuously  acted  upon,  after  the  taking  of 
Rome  by  Alaric,  in  matters  of  Church  government  as 
of  dogmatic  teaching,  when  Innocent  I.,  Coelestine,  and 
Leo  the  Great  displayed  their  conviction  that  in  them 
and  through  them  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles  ruled. 
Innocent  (402-417)  declared  that  all  the  Churches  of 
Italy,  Gaul,  Spain,  Africa,  and  Sicily  had  been 
founded  by  Peter  and  his  successors ;  it  was  in- 
cumbent on  them  to  follow  the  "  use  "  of  Rome.  He 
reminds  the  Bishops  of  Macedonia  that  they  must 
send  an  account  of  their  proceedings  to  the  "  head  of 
the  Churches."  He  takes  the  part  of  Chrysostom  ; 
excommunicates  the  usurper  of  his  See,  Acacius  ;  is 


POPES   IN    THE   LATER  AN  37 

urgent  against  the  Donatist  schism  in  Africa ;  con- 
demns Pelagius,  who  brings  into  the  fifth  century 
such  a  modern  air  of  "  Naturalism  "  ;  and  strives  to 
enforce  upon  the  prelates  at  Carthage  the  power  of 
receiving  appeals  which  he  grounds  on  the  Canons  of 
Nicaea.  He  was  met,  in  this  instance,  with  a  counter- 
claim for  verification  ;  the  Canons  (real  or  inter- 
polated) were  those  of  a  Latin  assembly  at  Sardica, 
now  Sophia,  in  Bulgaria.  But  they  took  their  place  in 
the  Corpus  Juris,  and  helped,  like  the  ever-growing 
pile  of  Decretals,  to  furnish  precedents  on  which  the 
medieval  Popes  were  ready  to  act  in  every  part  of 
Christendom. 

The  fall  of  Rome  in  410  was  the  destruction  of 
Paganism.  As  a  public  religion  it  disappeared  no 
less  completely  than  the  Jewish  rites  and -sacrifices 
on  the  burning  of  the  Temple.  Innocent  had  saved 
the  Basilicas  of  the  Apostles  from  profanation,  and 
Alaric  remained  only  three  days  in  the  city.  But, 
henceforth,  sacred  ceremonies,  popular  festivals,  and 
the  great  days  in  the  Calendar  must  all  be  Christian. 
The  Prefect  of  Rome  was  a  shadow  of  the  impotent 
Honorius,  cowering  behind  the  marshes  and  walls  of 
Ravenna.  But  the  Popes  in  their  Lateran  palace, 
given  them  by  Constantine,  lived  amongst  the  busiest 
throngs  of  the  ancient  Capital,  which  until  the  fires 
kindled  by  Robert  Guiscard  and  his  Normans  (1085) 
spread  out  round  the  Palatine,  Caelian,  and  Esquiline 
Hills.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  Pontiff,  as  it  had 
formerly  been  of  the  Emperor,  to  feed  the  people  in 
seasons  of  famine  ;  to  make  good  the  losses  occa- 
sioned by  earthquakes,  conflagrations,  risings  of  the 


38       FROM  PETER    TO  LEO    THE    GREAT 

Tiber,  invasions  of  Goths  or  Vandals  ;  to  preside  at 
the  crowded  Church  festivals,  which  took  the  place  of 
gladiatorial  sports,  abolished  at  this  time  ;  and  to  do 
v/hat  in  them  lay  as  mediators  between  the  people 
and  their  conquerors.  Alaric  had  besieged  Rome 
three  times  ;  Italy  was  soon  to  be  threatened  by  the 
strange  figure  of  Attila  the  Hun  (449),  famous  in 
history  as  the  Scourge  of  God  and  in  medieval  poetry 
as  Etzel,  the  hero  of  the  Nibelung  Epic.  In  455 
Genseric  the  Vandal  took  and  plundered  the  city. 
Yet  these  reiterated  misfortunes  did  but  enhance  the 
Papal  greatness  ;  since,  whatever  mercy  was  shown 
amid  the  prevailing  cruelty,  the  faithful  attributed  it 
with  Augustine  to  the  power  of  the  Christian  name  ; 
and  Innocent,  but  much  more  Leo,  might  take  the 
credit  of  it  as  granted  to  the  Holy  Apostles  at  their 
intercession. 

While,  therefore,  the  Bishops  of  Constantinople 
were  falling,  like  Nestorius,  into  heresy,  or  suffering 
deposition  and  exile  ;  and  while  Alexandria  was  dis- 
graced by  furious  partisans  like  Theophilus,  or  mis- 
creants of  the  stamp  of  Dioscorus  and  his  Monophysite 
successors,  the  Roman  dynasty  grew  in  strength, 
acquired  influence  with  foreign  and  even  hostile 
nations,  absorbed  into  itself  the  renown  of  the 
Eternal  City,  and  looked  forward  to  subduing  the 
whole  West  by  missionary  enterprise.  Ccelestine 
(422-432),  the  Pope  who  put  down  Pelagius  and  the 
Pelagians  in  Africa,  and  who  withstood  their  intrigues 
at  the  Imperial  Court,  was  the  same  man  that  ordered 
the  deposition  of  Nestorius  at  Ephesus,  and  is  said 
to  have  dispatched  Palladius,  as  afterwards  he  sent 


<    « 

"1 


40  FROM  PETER    TO  LEO    THE   GREAT 

St  Patrick,  to  preach  the  gospel  in  Ireland.  Such 
missions  were  Roman  in  their  language,  liturgy,  Canon 
Law,  and  cast  of  civilisation.  They  as  truly  implied 
a  conquest  to  the  legislation  of  the  Church,  as  Caesar's 
victorious  campaigns  in  Gaul  had  brought  with  them 
the  sovereignty  of  what  was  by  and  by  denominated 
the  Jus  Civile  over  the  vanquished  barbarians.  What 
was  now  attempted  in  the  farthest  Western  Isle  would 
be  successfully  carried  out  with  the  Franks  before 
the  century  ended ;  with  the  Angles  and  Saxons  a 
hundred  years  later ;  and  at  length  with  Germans, 
Danes,  Norsemen,  Wends,  Poles,  and  Hungarians. 
The  Papacy  looked  west  and  north.  Its  inheritance 
came  to  it  from  the  old  world  ;  but  during  the  next 
nine  hundred  years  it  appears  in  Europe  as  the 
principle  of  progress,  expansion,  assimilation,  and 
novelty,  disguised  under  the  outward  forms  of  law, 
which  was  continually  enlarging  its  bounds  by 
precedent. 

Leo  I.,  deservedly  known  as  the  Great  (440-461), 
exhibits  all  the  most  splendid  features  of  a  medieval 
Pope,  with  no  admixtureof  their  forbidding  or  violent 
complexion.  Like  the  eminent  among  them,  he  was 
a  Roman  by  birth  and  breeding  ;  yet  we  should  not 
overlook  the  picturesque  detail  that  he  had  personally 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Augustine  in  Africa  during 
the  troubles  with  Pelagius ;  he  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  risen  up  out  of  the  pages  of  the  "  City  of  God," 
with  his  "  noble  aspect  and  spare  youthful  form," 
as  though  to  carry  their  stupendous  design  into 
execution.  He  preached  a  majestic  theology  in 
language    that    no     Papal     briefs     have    surpassed, 


LEO   AND    THE   MA  NICHE  ES  4I 

though  the  best  among  them  aim  at  reproducing  it ; 
for  the  Ciceronian  ampHtude  of  later  and  present 
times  is  a  lapse  from  the  cursus  Leoninus.  But  he 
was  more  than  a  teacher  in  the  schools.  He  laid 
down  the  law  with  authority.  Rome  had  now 
"  become,  through  the  sacred  Chair  of  Peter,  head  of 
the  world  ;  "  its  religious  empire  stretched  far  beyond 
its  earthly  dominion  ;  and  this  was  the  work  of 
Providence.  As  already  seen,  the  Roman  Pontiff 
did  not  stoop  to  argue  with  the  time-serving  Bishops 
at  Chalcedon  ;  they  must  subscribe  his  "  Tome " 
as  he  sent  it ;  and  these  men,  who  would  fain  have 
exalted  Constantinople,  can  yet  flatter  him  in  their 
epistle  as  "  keeper  of  the  Lord's  vineyard,"  and 
''  Archbishop  of  the  world." 

In  Rome  his  action  was  no  less  decided.  The 
Manichees,  who  were  now  and  all  down  the  Middle 
Ages  to  inherit  the  speculative  tenets  and  bad  name 
of  their  Gnostic  forefathers,  had  been  condemned 
to  extinction  by  the  Code  of  the  Emperors.  They 
survived,  nevertheless  ;  nay,  they  flourished  exceed- 
ingly ;  nor  did  the  conversion  of  Augustine  to  their 
sect,  which  they  effected  in  his  youth,  ever  pass  from 
the  mind  of  the  mature  theologian.  A  discovery  made 
of  them  in  the  city  (443)  was  followed  by  charges  of 
magic,  and  of  gross  crimes  against  morality — the  usual 
accusations,  to  be  repeated  with  terrible  consequences 
in  after  times,  whenever  a  Manichaean  society  came  to 
light.  It  is  said  that  the  evidence  was  strong  and 
conclusive.  Some  were  admitted  to  penance.  The 
sect  at  large  underwent  exile  and  proscription  ;  but 
none  were  put  to  death.     Leo,  whose  share  in  dealing 


42       FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE    GREAT 

with  them  is  described  by  himself,  wrote  to  the  Bishops 
of  Italy  to  make  search  after  these  pestilent  heretics, 
and  persuaded  Valentinian  III.  to  renew  the  severest 
edicts  against  Manicheism.  The  whole  story  reads 
like  a  chapter  from  the  Albigensian  campaigns  of 
Innocent  III. 

The  tremendous  Scythian,  or  Hunnish  invasion, 
which  in  449  and  the  years  following  swept  over 
Europe,  had  met  with  only  the  shadow  of  resistance 
from  Theodosius  II.  It  seemed  likely  to  raze  out 
the  last  vestiges  of  Western  civilisation.  With  his 
innumerable  hordes  Attila  laid  siege  to  Constanti- 
nople, marched  down  to  Thermopylae,  turned  back 
through  the  Austrian  and  German  forests,  crossed 
the  Rhine,  and  pitched  his  camp  in  Eastern  Gaul. 
A  battle  of  the  giants  was  fought  on  the  Plains  of 
Chalons  ;  on  the  second  day  Attila  underwent  a 
horrible  defeat  at  the  hands  of  young  Thorismund, 
the  Visigoth,  not  altogether  without  assistance  from 
Aetius,  the  Roman  commander.  The  Hun  retreated, 
but  only  to  lay  waste  Italy  as  far  as  the  banks  of  the 
Po.  He  might  now  have  captured  Rome,  whither 
Valentinian  III.,  last  of  the  line  of  Theodosius,  had 
fled  for  refuge.  But  on  the  reedy  shores  of  the 
Lago  di  Garda,  not  far  from  Mantua,  the  Barbarian 
was  met  by  a  solemn  embassy,  Pope  Leo  at  its 
head.  To  the  petition  of  the  venerable  Pontiff  he 
yielded.  He  would  be  content  with  tribute — it  was 
called  the  dowry  of  the  Princess  Honoria,  who  had 
offered  herself  in  marriage  to  this  ogre — and  would 
retire  beyond  the  Alps.  That  he  listened  to  Pope 
Leo's  prayers  is  certain  ;  his  motives  must  remain  a 


HIS  INTERVIEW    WITH  ATTILA  43 

conjecture.  Was  it  disease  in  his  army  that  held 
him  back  ?  Or  a  presentiment  of  approaching  death, 
excited  by  the  speedy  end  of  Alaric  after  he  had 
broken  into  the  world's  Capital  ?  Or  did  he  behold 
the  Apostles  in  the  air  threatening  him,  while  Leo 
spoke  with  grave  sacerdotal  eloquence  ?  Later  ages 
put  faith  in  the  sublime  legend.  But  it  is  doubtless 
true  that  the  wildest  of  Barbarian  chiefs  felt  a 
superstitious  reverence  for  the  name  of  Rome.  Ex- 
amples will  be  frequent  of  lawless  freebooters  who 
turn  aside  even  from  sanctuaries  known  to  be 
wealthy  at  the  word  of  saint  or  monk,  and  in  dread 
of  the  deities  who  dwelt  there.  Leo  had  saved  the 
city  ;  he  was  hailed  on  his  return  as  a  new  Camillus. 

Such  noble  achievements  must  have  led  him  to 
reply  with  scorn  and  indignation,  as  he  did  in  three 
letters  still  extant,  to  Anatolius  the  Patriarch  who 
claimed  for  Constantinople  the  second  rank,  as  en- 
acted in  Canon  28  at  Chalcedon.  He  would  not 
hear  of  it  ;  whoso  pretended  to  be  an  Oecumenical 
Bishop  was  Antichrist.  Yet  he  not  only  received 
questions  from  all  over  the  West  on  points  of  dis- 
cipline, but  when  Hilary  of  Aries  in  445  had,  in  a 
Council,  deposed  the  Bishop  Celidonius  and  the 
latter  had  appealed  to  Rome,  Leo  annulled  the 
sentence  and  restored  Celidonius.  This  was  some- 
thing new.  Hilary,  coming  to  the  shrine  of  the 
Apostles,  pleaded  the  usages  of  the  Gallic  Church 
and  his  own  Metropolitan  rights,  in  language  of 
remarkable  violence,  to  which  the  Pope  answered  by 
an  epistle  to  the  B*ishops  of  his  province,  Vienne, 
releasing  them  from  their  allegiance   to   the  See  of 


44       FROM  PETER    TO   LEO    THE   GREAT 

Aries,  and  interdicting  the  offender  from  being  pre- 
sent at  futi>re  consecrations.  Nay,  more;  Valen- 
tinian  III. — a  dissolute  and  cowardly  prince,  but 
devoted  to  the  Church — issued  at  Leo's  request  a 
"  Perpetual  Edict  "  which  recognised  the  Papal 
primacy  as  resting  on  the  merits  of  St.  Peter,  the 
majesty  of  Rome,  and  the  decree  of  a  sacred  Council. 
To  resist  the  Pope's  commands  was  treason ;  his 
decrees  were  law  and  did  not  need  the  Emperor's 
confirmation  ;  he  was  ruler  of  the  Universal  Church  ; 
and  all  persons  whom  he  summoned  to  him  for  judg- 
ment should  be  brought  up,  if  they  did  not  come 
willingly,  by  the  Moderator  of  the  province,  that  is 
to  say,  by  the  secular  arm. 

This  establishment  of  the  Roman  Church  as  a 
supreme  tribunal  is  attributed  to  the  Empress 
Placidia,  Valentinian's  mother,  and  a  staunch  friend 
of  the  inflexible  Pontiff.  Regulations  of  a  tenor  not 
unlike,  but  without  reference  to  Gaul,  are  quoted  by 
a  Roman  Council  of  380  in  its  address  to  Gratian 
and  Valentinian  II.  "  Following  the  precept  of  the 
Holy  Apostles,"  say  the  Fathers,  "ye  have  decreed 
that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  should  institute  inquiries 
concerning  the  other  priests  of  the  churches."  In 
these  words  we  perceive  that  the  ecclesiastical  immu- 
nities were  then  allowed  ;  or,  to  quote  St.  Ambrose, 
"  Priests  (alone)  were  to  pass  judgment  on  priests." 
Quite  another  question  was  it  whether  the  Pope 
could  take  appeals  over  the  head  of  Metropolitans  ; 
but  the  Perpetual  Edict  answered  in  the  affirmative 
four  hundred  years  before  the  False  Decretals  (about 
850)  made  this  principle  the  corner  stone  of  a  vast 


THE   PAX  ROMANA    CEASES  45 

legal  system.  Hilary,  it  must  be  observed,  was 
charged  with  tyrannical  procedures,  not  with  false 
doctrine.  And  the  Gallican  Church  was  already 
appealing  from  the  Pope  to  its  ancient  Canons  or 
customs — in  vain  now,  as  afterwards  under  Bossuet 
and  the  Assembly  of  1682. 

The  crimes,  follies,  and  murder  of  Valentinian 
brought  Genseric  with  his  Arian  Vandals  up  the 
Tiber  in  455.  Rome  could  make  no  stand  against 
him.  Fourteen  days  were  consumed  in  the  pillage 
of  the  churches  and  plundering  of  the  city.  Pagan 
trophies  were  crammed  on  board  ship,  only  to  sink 
on  their  way  to  Carthage.  The  seven-branched 
candlestick  and  other  sacred  emblems  brought  by 
Titus  from  Jerusalem  shared  the  same  fate.  The 
ladies  of  the  Imperial  house  were  made  slaves, 
though  not  dishonourably  treated.  Leo  might  plead 
successfully  with  the  Pagan  Attila  ;  but  the  Vandals 
were  heretics,  and  did  not  heed  his  expostulations. 
Yet  they  passed  away  suddenly  as  they  came,  while 
the  Pontiff  and  his  clergy  remained,  to  console,  to 
teach,  and  in  some  degree  to  preserve  from  the  rising 
flood  of  barbarism  a  people  who  now  saw  in  the 
Church  their  only  ark  of  refuge. 

If  we  extend  our  view  over  the  ruins  of  the 
Western  Empire,  such  is  the  spectacle  that  meets  us 
on  every  side.  Laws  are  broken  up ;  governors 
cannot  defend ;  the  sword  is  the  arbiter  of  public  and 
private  right ;  the  Pax  Romana  has  ceased  ;  it  is  a 
universal  confusion.  But  wherever  a  Bishop  holds 
his  court,  religion  protects  all  that  is  left  of  the 
ancient  order.     A  new  Rome  ascends  slowly  above 


46        FROM  PETER    TO    LEO    THE    GREAT 

the  horizon.  It  holds  within  it  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Christian  Testaments  ;  it  has  never  forgotten  the 
forms  of  jurisprudence  ;  it  possesses  an  art,  an  archi- 
tecture, curiously  modelled  upon  the  lines  of  happier 
days  ;  it  is  even  the  heir  of  the  religion  which  it  has 
overthrown  ;  it  assumes  the  outward  splendour  of 
the  Caesars  ;  but  its  reliance  is  upon  a  Creed  they 
never  knew,  in  which  justice  and  mercy,  qualities  of 
the  spirit,  not  of  the  flesh,  are  to  serve  as  its  strength 
and  guidance.  The  Emperor  is  no  more  ;  the  Consul 
has  laid  down  the  fasces  ;  the  golden  Capitol  has 
seen  its  gods  and  heroes  carried  into  captivity  by  a 
Wendish  robber  from  the  shores  of  the  Baltic.  But 
the  Pontifex  Maximus  abides  ;  he  is  now  the  Vicar 
of  Christ,  offering  the  old  civilisation  to  the  tribes  of 
the  North.  He  converts  them  to  his  creed,  and  they 
serve  him  as  their  Father  and  Judge  Supreme. 
This  is  the  Papal  Monarchy,  which  in  its  power 
and  its  decline  overshadows  the  history  of  Europe  for 
a  thousand  years. 


Ill 


GREGORY    THE    GREAT,    MONASTICISM,   AND    ST. 
BENEDICT. 


r46i-590-604) 


Though  Leo  I.  had  seen  clearly  the  part  which 
this  New  Christian  Rome  was  destined  to  play,  and 
himself  had  acted  up  to  it  magnificently,  the  next 
hundred  and  thirty  years  brought  to  the  Papacy  little 
honour  and  much  tribulation.  Not  until  we  come  to 
Gregory,  best  and  greatest  in  the  long  line  of 
Pontiffs,  do  we  meet  a  ruler  of  powers  equal  to  his 
task,  while  the  unexpected  revival  of  the  Empire, 
due  to  Belisarius  and  Narses,  but  called  by  the  name 
of  Justinian,  made  the  Pope  subject  once  more  to  an 
Eastern  Court.  Obscure  but  embittered  controversies 
led  to  a  schism  in  spirituals  between  Rome  and 
Constantinople  which  lasted  thirty-five  years  (484- 
519).  A  Council,  the  Fifth  General,  is  supposed  to 
have  cut  off  Pope  Vigilius  from  Catholic  Communion. 
Rut  if  the  Greeks  repudiated  him,  the  Westerns 
revolted    against    him.     Africa   fell  away  ;   Ravenna, 


48        GREGORY    THE    GREAT  AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

Milan,  Aquileia  strove  to  be  independent.  The 
Goths  were  Arians ;  and  three  times  under  their 
rude  heretical  kings  did  they  besiege  the  Eternal 
City.  After  the  last  sieges  by  Totila  (546-549),  the 
population,  greatly  dinninished,  fled  from  their  houses  ; 
during   forty   days    Rome    lay   desolate    and    silent. 


TOMB  OF  THEODORIC  AT  RAVENNA. 

[Sixth  Century.) 

The  end  had  come  of  its  greatness  ;  even  the  old 
race  was  extinct  or  was  lost  among  the  Barbarian 
adventurers.  A  plague,  returning  with  terrible  fre- 
quency, almost  as  fatal  as  the  Black  Death  long 
afterwards,  spread  from  Egypt  to  Gaul.  Earth- 
quakes, floods,  and  a  darkening  of  the  air  which 
seldom  lifted,  were  taken  to  be  signs  of  approaching 


MIDDLE   AGES   BECLV  49 

doom.  When  the  Gothic  kingdom  fell  before  the 
Lombards,  when  Theodoric,  Boethius,  and  Cassio- 
doriis  were  fading  into  memories  of  a  past  not 
wholly  uncivilised,  the  ruin  of  the  Western  Empire 
was  complete.  At  this  hour  of  deepest  eclipse 
Gregory  ascended  the  Papal  Chair,  and  the  Middle 
Ages  began. 

In  this  noble  and  attractive  person  we  may  affirm 
that  all  which  the  ancient  world  could  now  bequeath 
to  the  modern  was  to  be  found.  He  sprang  from 
the  most  conspicuous  of  late  Roman  Houses,  the 
Anicii,  who  had  long  been  Christian.  The  grand- 
son of  Pope  Felix  and  son  of  Gordianus,  at  one 
time  he  was  Praitor,  if  not  Prefect,  of  the  City. 
Then,  in  obedience  to  the  strongest  current  of  his 
age,  he  had  become  a  monk.  He  turned  his  fine 
mansion  on  the  Ccclian  into  a  monastery.  He  gave 
himself  up  to  prayer,  to  reading,  and  to  ascetic 
exercises.  By  Pelagius  H.  he  had  been  sent  to 
Constantinople  as  apocrisiarius^  or  charge  d'affaires — 
an  appointment  which,  while  the  Byzantine  Court 
governed  at  Rome,  led  up,  as  a  rule,  to  the  Papacy. 
Though  not  in  the  classic  sense  a  scholar,  and 
affecting  some  disdain  for  heathen  accomplishments, 
he  spoke  and  wrote  a  Latin  which  was  far  superior  to 
the  jargon  now  resulting  from  the  wild  intermixture 
of  peoples  and  languages  in  Western  Europe.  In 
music  and  the  arts  that  served  for  ritual  or  decora- 
tive purposes  within  the  churches  of  Italy  he  was 
skilled  to  a  deg^ree  which  has  made  the  name-  of 
Gregorians  famous.  Nor  did  he  lack  the  qualities 
of  a    lawgiver  and    administrator.      With    ambition, 


50        GREGORY   THE    GREAT  AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

pride,  or  avarice  —  the  temptations  to  which  more 
than  one  Pope  afterwards  yielded — Gregory  cannot 
be  charged.  His  mind  was  not  that  of  a  philo- 
sopher ;  he  shared  in  the  beliefs  so  widely  prevalent 
at  his  day,  and  by  his  book  of  Dialogues  con- 
tributed not  a  little  to  spread  them  during  the 
medieval  period.  His  genius  and  character,  direct, 
sincere,  practical,  yet  over-laid  with  allegorising 
fancies  (the  common  feature  of  decadence  in  thought), 
were  altogether  Roman. 

Elected  against  his  will  in  590,  he  had  no  arms 
wherewith  to  resist  the  Lombards,  whose  Arian 
beliefs  and  barbarian  race,  no  less  than  their  burnings 
and  plunderings,  made  them  detestable  to  the  older 
Italians.  Yet  on  him  it  fell  to  feed  and  defend  the 
city.  The  Imperial  officers  could  do  nothing.  But 
the  Church  held  large  domains  in  the  Agro  Romano, 
in  Calabria,  Corsica,  Sardinia,  Sicily,  and  Dalmatia, 
which  went  by  the  name  of  St.  Peter's  Patrimony. 
It  was  a  custom  as  early  as  Pope  Soter  (180)  for  the 
Roman  Church  to  send  assistance  wherever  Chris- 
tians found  themselves  in  distress.  Now  as  then  the 
Church  fed  the  Roman  people  ;  to  such  elemen- 
tary human  offices  had  it  come  ;  but  in  thus  stooping 
it  laid  foundations  deep  for  the  Pope's  temporal 
power.  Gregory  acted  as  lieutenant  of  the  Empire 
though  not  by  designation.  The  Exarch  came 
from  Ravenna ;  took  with  him  what  was  left  of 
the  garrison  ;  and  deserted,  the  city  against  which 
Agilulf  was  brmging  his  wild  followers.  They  were 
bought  off  by  the  Pope,  who  called  hihiself  with  a 
smile  "payma.ster  of  the  Lombards."     When  he  was 


LOMBARDS   AND   GREEKS  51 

rebuked  by  the  Emperor  Maurice,  he  could  answer 
that  he  was  sharing  in  the  dangers  and  warding  off 
the  captivity  of  his  own  city.  The  sovereign  power 
was  passing  into  his  hands.  He  defends  officials 
who  appeal  to  him  from  the  violence  of  Byzantine 
corruption  and  secular  judges.  He  alone  signs  the 
treaty  of  peace  with  Agilulf  He  insists  on  the 
freedom  of  soldiers  who  are  desirous  of  becoming 
monks,  although  the  Emperor  had  forbidden  it.  If, 
as  Pope,  he  was  the  richest  landowner  in  Italy,  with 
thousands  of  serfs  and  myriads  of  acres  yielding  him 
a  revenue,  from  these  resources  he  nourished  his 
Romans  at  the  doors  of  the  basilicas.  Neither  would 
he  permit  his  coloni  to  be  ruthlessly  oppressed.  He 
maintained  the  churches,  ransomed  captives,  set  up 
hospitals  for  pilgrims,  and  saw  to  it  that  twice  in  the 
year  a  corn-bearing  fleet  from  Sicily  supplied  Rome 
with  provisions  at  Portus.  His  tribune  protected 
the  inhabitants  of  Naples  from  tyranny.  He  advised 
or  commanded  military  precautions  to  be  taken  in 
Sardinia.  Yet  he  would  not  exasperate  the  Lombards, 
hoping  doubtless  to  see  them  turn  one  day  from  their 
heresy,  as  they  came  more  and  more  under  the 
magic  of  the  Roman  name. 

His  relations  with  the  Bishops  and  Emperors  of 
Constantinople  were  fluctuating.  He  had  persuaded 
Eutychius  to  give  up  the  doctrine  of  a  purely 
spiritual  resurrection.  John  the  Faster,  who  styled 
himself  "  Universal  Bishop,"  was  reminded  of  the 
protest  formerly  made  against  this  encroachment  on 
the  rights  of  his  brethren  and  of  the  Papacy  ;  but  it 
was  a  title  which   Gregory    put    from    himself   with 


52         CzREGORY    THE    GREAT   AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

horror.  The  signature  of  his  own  predecessors,  as 
the  documents  witness,  had  been  "  Bishop  of  the 
Catholic  Church  of  Rome." 

In  602  the  Emperor  Maurice  was  dethroned  and 
murdered  by  Phocas,  a  centurion.  That  Pope 
Gregory  had  learned  the  details  of  this  blood-stained 
revolution  is  not  clear ;  but  he  acknowledged  the 
usurper,  received  his  portrait  solemnly  in  the  Palatine 
chapel,  and  wrote  to  him  in  terms  of  Oriental  adula- 
tion. It  is  said  that  he  resented  various  measures  of 
unkindness  on  the  part  of  Maurice  ;  above  all,  his 
connivance  in  the  ambitious  designs  of  John  the 
Faster.  And  confirmation  is  sought  in  the  decree, 
put  forth  by  Phocas  in  607,  which  ordained  that  "  the 
See  of  Blessed  Peter  the  Apostle  should  be  head  of 
all  the  Churches. "^JHhis-undoubtedly  was  meant  as 
a  rebuke  to  the-'f^riarch  and  clergy  of  Saint  Sophia. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Popes 
ever  attached  importance  to  the  proclamation.  In 
all  their  arguments  they  take  their  stand  resolutely 
on  the  words  of  Scripture  and  their  own  Decretals, 
w^hich  had  the  force  of  law  in  Western  Christendom. 

The  Bishops  were  fast  growing  into  great  temporal 
lords.  Wherever  a  breathing  time  from  war  was 
given,  men  and  women  disposed  of  their  wealth  for 
spiritual  blessings  and  benefits.  Even  unfit  or  youth- 
ful candidates  now  begin  to  appear,  as  the  Sees  of 
Christendom  are  worth  coveting  by  noble  families. 
But  no  Bishops  can  plead  exemption  from  Gregory's 
jurisdiction.  They  are  subject  to  his  "  forum."  He 
deposes  the  Bishop  of  Naples,  degrades  him  of 
Melita,    threatens    in    severe   terms  -^he    prelates    of 


THE   ARIAN   GOTHS  53 

Tarentum,  Cagliari,  and  Salona.  He  abounds  in 
remonstrances,  which  bore  little  fruit,  against  the 
scandals  of  the  Gaulish  Church,  under  Queen 
Brunhilde  and  the  Kings  Thierry  and  Theodebert. 
He  has  a  certain  power  in  Greece  ;  but  his  directions, 
even  in  matters  of  dogma,  find  no  acceptance  in 
Illyricum.  The  West  was  to  be  Rome's  peculiar 
province.  There  Gregory  overthrew  the  failing 
squadrons  of  Arianism,  reconciled  Spain,  and  by 
means  of  his  legate  or  missionary,  Augustine,  estab- 
lished in  England  a  succession  of  Bishops,  under 
whose  ecclesiastical  government  the  country  was 
organised,  as  its  inhabitants  gradually  submitted  to 
the  Gospel,  and  men  like  Theodore  of  Tarsus  were 
sent  from  Rome  to  rule  over  it  (597-668). 

Had  Arianism  stood  its  ground  outside  the  Greek 
Empire,  a  state  of  incessant  religious  warfare,  ending 
at  last  in  toleration,  might  have  ensued,  as  when, 
long  afterwards,  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  (1648)  set  up 
a  balance  of  power  between  Catholics  and  Reformed 
Christians.  But  the  Arian  creed  was  the  product  of 
a  learned  and  disputatious  temper,  more  congenial 
to  reasoning  than  to  simple  faith  ;  its  home  had 
always  been  the  cultivated  cities  of  Asia.  From  the 
Imperial  Court  it  spread  among  the  Goths.  As  they 
moved  onward  and  took  possession  of  Southern  Gaul 
and  Spain,  the  links  which  bound  them  to  a  Syrian 
system  and  a  rationalising  philosophy  grew  constantly 
weaker.  Of  learned  teachers  they  could  scarcely 
boast.  Ulfilas,  their  Bishop,  had  translated  the  Bible 
into  Maiso-Gothic  ;  but  schools  of  theology  they  had 
none,  nor  a  centre  of  religious   life,   nor  the  logical 


54    GREGORY    THE    GREAT   AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

refinement  out  of  which  this  not  very  attractive 
heresy  had  sprung.  In  the  lapse  of  time  it  was 
upheld  only  by  Court  favour. 

Arian  chiefs  had  reigned  at  Ravenna,  Pavia,  Aries, 
and  Toledo  ;  but  the  Catholic  Bishops  disdained  to 
give  way  before  them.  And  towards  the  close  of  the 
sixth  century  this  political  arrangement  was  breaking 
up.  Py  a  supreme  good  fortune,  the  Franks  under 
Chlodowig  (Clovis,  Louis,  Ludwig,  are  all  forms  of 
this  Teutonic  name)  had  accepted  Roman  Christianity 
at  the  hands  of  Remigius,  Bishop  of  Rheims  (496). 
It  was  a  conversion  equal  in  importance  to  that  of 
Constantine,  nor  unlike  it  in  its  motives  or  its  results. 
The  mightiest  sword  wielded  by  a  Barbarian  was  now 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  The  French 
King  became  "  Eldest  Son  of  the  Church."  He  was 
destined  to  smite  the  Arian,  to  drive  back  the 
Mohammedan,  to  endow  the  Papacy  with  a  kingdom 
of  its  own,  to  make  the  name  of  Frank  synonymous 
with  Christian  all  over  the  East  for  many  ages,  to 
found  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  to  lead  the 
Crusades. 

In  its  palmiest  days  the  Arian  had  never  been  a 
popular  creed.  Against  it  the  multitudes  had  risen 
in  tumult ;  but  its  fiercest  enemies  were  the  monks, 
who  swarmed  out  of  their  deserts  and  filled  the 
streets  of  Alexandria  or  Ephesus  with  noisy  pro- 
testations of  the  orthodox  faith.  Now,  the  whole 
world  was  turning  to  monasticism.  It  claimed  to  be 
the  perfect,  the  Divine  life.  Its  triumphs  under 
Benedict,  Columban,  Boniface,  of  which  we  have 
soon  to  speak,  were  already  assured  in  the  conviction 


FRANKS    OVERTHROW    VISIGOTHS  55 

even  of  the  wild  German  tribes,  on  whom  it  exercised 
an  irresistible  charm.  All  that  was  mystic,  miraculous, 
and  beyond  nature  in  the  Christian  teaching,  found 
its  realisation  wherever  the  solitaries  planted  their 
staff  in  the  wilderness.  The  Arian  despised  the 
monk,  and  was  vanquished  by  him.  Something  not 
unlike  the  first  age  of  the  Gospel  might  be  remarked 
in  this  contrast  between  simple  or  enthusiastic 
believers  and  the  prelates,  who  were  clothed  in 
soft  garments  and  dwelt  in  kings'  houses.  If  the 
common  people  were  to  decide,  the  issue  could  not 
be  doubtful. 

Thus  the  newly-baptized  sword  of  France,  and  the 
miracle-working  rod  of  monasticism,  were  at  the 
service  of  a  polity  in  Rome  which  had  never 
wavered  since  the  days  of  Silvester  and  Athanasius. 
To  this  array  of  forces  the  Arian  host  was  quite 
unequal.  Law  and  learning,  martial  courage  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  cloister,  were  banded  against  it. 
Burgundy,  which  had  existed  as  an  heretical  power 
since  about  430,  fell  in  520  before  the  assaults  of  the 
Franks,  and  with  the  dynasty  its  Arianism  came  to 
an  end.  This  was  to  be  the  tale  everywhere.  Spain, 
under  its  feeble  Visigoth  rulers,  abounded  in  crimes 
and  tragedies.  Yet,  unlike  the  Vandals  in  Africa,  they 
had  given  large  toleration  to  their  Roman  or  Catholic 
subjects  (the  names  are  now  used  indifferently),  and 
had  the  Franks  not  come  down  upon  them,  Spain 
might  have  exhibited  the  rare  spectacle  of  a  heretic 
prince  living  in  peace  with  his  orthodox  tributaries. 
But  in  507  the  sanguinary  Clovis  wrested  from  these 
Visigoths   Toulouse   and   Aquitaine.      There  ensued 


56        GREGORY    THE    GREAT  AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

hereupon  a  death-struggle  between  the  Catholic  party, 
which  looked  for  assistance  to  the  Franks  or  the 
Greeks,  and  the  Arian  nobles  with  their  king,  who 
were  now  hemmed  about  as  in   a  circle  of  fire. 

Leodevigild  had  two  sons,  Hermenegild  and 
Reccared.  Their  mother  was  Greek  and  orthodox  ; 
the  sons  shared  her  beliefs.  Against  Hermenegild 
the  charge  was  brought  that,  in  conjunction  with 
Leander,  Bishop  of  Seville,  he  meditated  treason,  and 
was  for  calling  in  the  Franks.  His  father  began 
general  measures  of  persecution  ;  imprisoned  Her- 
menegild, offered  him  the  Arian  confession,  and  on 
his  rejecting  it,  had  him  put  to  death.  All  proved  in 
vain.  The  young  prince  was  revered  as  a  martyr. 
Leodevigild  died  speedily  (586),  and  Reccared,  now 
King,  held  a  tourney  of  argument  between  the  con- 
tending Bishops  at  Toledo  next  year,  which  ended  in 
his  declaring  himself  a  Catholic.  Formal  acceptance 
of  the  Nicene  Creed  followed  in  589.  Pope  Gregory 
canonised  Hermenegild,  the  story  of  whose  martyr- 
dom he  has  written  with  tender  feeling.  And  in  ad- 
dressing Reccared,  he  spoke  as  though  the  Spanish 
kingdom  were  subject  in  a  peculiar  way  to  the 
Roman  Church  —  a  claim  which  later  Pontiffs 
heightened  into  their  suzerainty  over  the  whole 
Peninsula. 

As  the  Franks  were  instrumental  in  this  conquest 
of  Spain,  so  they  took  no  insignificant  share  in  the 
success  of  Gregory's  mission  to  the  Anglo-Saxons. 
Queen  Bertha  was  daughter  of  Charibert,  King  of 
Paris.  Prankish  interpreters  accompanied  Augustine 
to  Thanet ;  and   St.  Martin  of  Tours,   wXose  shrine 


ST.    GREGORY    THE   CxREAT. 

{From  ail  Eugravin,:^  ///  (he  Jhifish  Miisciiiit  Print  Room.) 


58        GRItGORY    THE    GREAT  AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

may   be   almost  termed    the   cradle   of  the    French 

monarchy,  has  to  this  day  his  church  at  Canterbury, 

founded  by  the   pious  Queen.     Monks  whose  home 

was   lona   or   Lindisfarne,  helped  to  make  England 

Christian,   from   the   Cheviots  to   the  Thames.     But 

Augustine,  Paulinus,  and  Wilfrid  of  York  made  it 

Roman  in  hierarchy,  ritual,  and  learning.    The  Saxon 

kings  were  constant  pilgrims  to  St.  Peter's  shrine. 

Four  times  has  the  Papacy  won  its  triumphs  over 

barbarians  or  heretics  with  the  aid  of  men  who  had 

renounced   the  world  only  to  conquer   it.      Gregory 

the  Great  was  a  monk  and  a  Benedictine.     Without 

these  marching  legions  he  could  have  done  nothing 

for   civilisation,    and   neither  England  nor  Germany 

would  have  known  the  Gospel.     St.  Benedict  is  the 

Cadmus  and   Solon  of  the  centuries  which  find  their 

Caesar  in  Charlemagne.     But  the  Dark  Ages  follow  ; 

and    four   hundred   and    fifty   years    after    Gregory, 

another   of  his    name,   the   monk   better   known  as 

Hildebrand,  calls  ag^ain  to    his   cloistered    brethren. 

V 
With  their  help  he  reforms  the  clergy,  sets  free  the 

Church,  beats   the   Emperor  to  his  knees,  and  dies 

feudaL4ord_of  Europe.     Once  more,  under  the  most 

majestic  of  the  Popes,  Innocent   III.,  Christendom 

seems  to  be  falling  in  pieces,  rent  by  factions,  simony, 

clerical  vice,  popular  heresy.     And  again  the  monks, 

transformed   to  friars  by  Francis  and  Dominic,  but 

disciplined  by  yet  another  Gregory,  charm  the  people 

back   to  their  allegiance,  put    down    the   dissenters, 

subdue  to  their  scholastic  doctors  the  philosophy  of 

Aristotle  and  the  Arabians.     Last  of  all,  during  the 

agony  of  the  Reformation,  Ignatius  Loyola  and  his 


// 


MONASTICISM  59 

Jesuits,  taking  to  themselves  the  principle  of  utter 
self-sacrifice  as  a  motive  for  combat  and  conquest, 
restore  the  day  which  had  been  all  but  lost,  and  cover 
the  New  World  no  less  than  the  Old  with  churches, 
schools,  universities,  colonies.  Medieval  Europe  can 
never  be  seen  as  it  really  was  except  in  the  light  of 
that  omnipotent  monasticism. 

Eastern  in  origin,  it  entered  the  West  with 
Athanasius  (340),  captivated  the  impetuous  Jerome, 
and  was  fostered  at  Milan  by  Ambrose.  It  flourished 
at  Tours,  Lerins,  and  Marseilles,  and  found  a  law- 
giver in  Augustine,  who  cultivated  its  most  austere 
virtues.  But  though  Cassian  sketched  its  heroes  in 
his  Fathers  of  the  Desert,  it  was  to  derive  from 
Benedict  of  Nursia  its  lasting  form,  at  once  more 
practical  and  more  moderate  than  even  the  Rule  of 
the  lofty  St.  Basil.  Romans  or  Barbarians  would  not 
endure  the  pillar-saints  of  Syria;  and  wildly  picturesque 
as  were  the  lives  of  Celtic  hermits,  the  good  sense 
which  marked  Imperial  laws  and  ordinances  tamed 
even  these,  when  Columban's  severe  regulations 
yielded  to  the  genius  of  a  more  considerate  legislator. 
Not  that  Benedict  had  learning,  or  took  on  himself 
a  civilising  mission.  His  aim  was  strictly  religious, 
ascetic,  personal.  But  he  framed  a  code  upon  which 
the  life  in  community  might  be  lived  during  ages  of 
social  confusion. 

Thus  the  Christian  republic  began  like  some 
dream  of  Plato.  Its  celibate  members  were  drawn 
from  a  world  in  which  the  sword  alone  had  rights ; 
where  traffic  had  become  piracy  or  brigandage ; 
where  libraries  were  but  sheepskin,  the  fields  a  thorny 


6o  GREGORY    THE    GREAT  AND   ST.    BENEDICT 

waste,  the  Roman  high-roads  between  city  and  city 
fallen  into  disuse,  and  all  Europe  lay  in  the  gloom 
of  a  forest  stretching  unbroken  from  the  shores  of 
Brittany  to  the  step.pes  of  Russia.  A  few  walled 
towns,  calling  themselves  Roman  municipalities,  stood 
up  as  isolated  rocks  in  the  deluge.  Over  them  the 
Bishops  ruled  as  defensores  civitatis,  with  phantom- 
'ofticials  at  their  elbow.  But  the  question  was,  who 
would  subdue  the  savage  lands  to  the  plough,  and 
their  intractable  conquerors  to  a  life  not  wholly 
warfare  ?  After  six  hundred  years  of  the  strangest 
vicissitudes  it  was  answered  by  St.  Benedict's  disciples. 
To  all  that  is  admirable  in  the  Medieval  centuries 
they  lay  a  just  claim,  and  the  mighty  figure  of  their 
hermit-founder  stands  aloft  over  modern  civilisation 
as  its  author,  if  not  its  ideal.  "  The  Order  of  St. 
Benedict,"  says  Michelet,  "gave  to  a  world  worn  out 
by  slavery  the  first  example  of  labour  done  by  the 
hands  of  the  free." 

His  "  legend,"  written  by  St.  Gregory,  takes  us 
at  a  bound  from  the  dead  classic  literature  into 
the  miraculous  air  and  curiously  painted  lights  of 
the  Middle  Age.  Born  near  Spoleto  (480),  sent 
to  study  in  Rome,  he  fled  from  the  doomed  city, 
and  hid  himself  in  the  gorges  of  the  Apennines,  not 
far  from  a  country  house  of  Nero  at  Subiaco,  where 
he  lived  three  years  in  a  cave,  and  where  his  twelve 
monasteries  arose  by  and  by,  as  well  as  the  convent 
of  his  sister,  Scholastica.  The  glory  of  monasticism 
was  to  be  shared  by  illustrious  women  of  genius,  not 
Italian  chiefly,  but  French,  Saxon,  Irish,  German, 
whose   institutes    were   adapted    from    those    of  the 


''TO   LABOUR   IS    TO   PRAV''  6 1 

Sterner  sex,  while  their  industry  in  cultivating  lands 
or  books  was  scarcely  inferior.  Thus  began  the 
emancipation  of  woman  in  our  Western  world — 
behind  the  safe  walls  of  a  cloister,  in  a  sacred  peace, 
and  under  vows  which  Kings  themselves  could  not 
trample  on  without  remorse  and  public  condemnation. 
Benedict,  however,  was  to  end  his  days  at  the  yet 
more  famous  Monte  Cassino,  which  still  towers  above 
the  Garigliailo,  and  which  became  a  monastic  Rome, 
mother  and  mistress  of  the  thousand  communities 
spread  into  every  country  where  the  Papal  power 
extended.  Here  the  Saint  encountered  Totila,  King 
of  the  Goths,  overawed  him,  and  foretold  his  death. 
Cassino  was  ruined  in  these  perpetual  wars ;  but 
when  Benedict  and  Scholastica  passed  away,  almost 
at  the  same  moment,  their  work  had  been  set  on  an 
everlasting  base,  and  time  would  prove  this  dream  of 
enthusiastic  piety  to  be  as  enduring  as  the  foundations 
of  Rome  itself. 

Much  of  the  Saint's  legend  is  romantic  poetry. 
What  the  man  did  and  was  we  may  contemplate  in 
his  Rule.  Its  unstudied  Latin  lays  down  the  sum  of 
discipline  for  monks,  who  are  to  spend  their  stated 
hours  in  chanting  the  Divine  service,  in  reading,  in 
manual  labour.  The  brethren  are  to  serve  God  with 
their  hands — Laborare  est  orare — a  perfect  idea,  in 
some  magnificent  degree  fulfilled  when  the  Order  had 
restored  agriculture  and  the  arts  of  life,  had  saved 
from  destruction  the  masterpieces  of  antiquity,  and 
"  Eden  raised  in  the  waste  wilderness."  To  the  letter 
they  accomplished  this  word. 

They   were   laymen,    not   clerics,    except   the    few 


62        GREGORY   THE    GREAT  AND  ST.   BENEDICT 

needed  for  Mass  and  other  ordinances.  Abstinence 
from  flesh,  much  fasting,  silence,  and  the  strictest 
obedience  to  command,  were  all  means  well  suited 
to  creating  a  peaceful,  orderly  temper,  at  once  the 
marvel  of  barbarians  and  a  check  upon  the  universal 
Faiistrecht^  or  rule  of  the  strong  hand.  No  one  who  had 
taken  the  vows  could  quit  them  at  his  good  pleasure. 
Children  were  often  dedicated  before  coming  to 
years  of  discretion  ;  we  must  not  suppose  the 
modern  respect  for  personal  liberty  in  a  time  so 
rude  and  inchoate.  A  man  belonged  to  his  clan, 
his  lord,  or  his  community,  unless  he  fled  away 
to  the  wild  wood  and  became  a  heathen  or  Christian 
Ishmaelite.  But  soon  Maurus  in  Gaul,  as  the  story 
tells,  or  at  all  events  some  follower  of  Benedict, 
was  establishing  the  colonies  which  had  swarmed 
from  Monte  Cassino.  Houses  multiplied  all  through 
Italy.  The  Lateran  had  its  monks,  and  Gregory  the 
Great,  as  we  have  seen,  turned  his  mansion  on  the 
Caelian  Hill  into  a  cloister,  from  which  he  ascended 
the  Papal  throne,  and  England  received  its  Chris- 
tianity. The  great  lines  of  medieval  Europe  were 
drawn  as  on  a  chart,  its  problems  designed,  their 
solution  foreshadowed,  when  the  most  Roman  of  the 
Popes  died,  after  a  reign  of  only  fourteen  years, 
crowded  with  memorable  issues,  on  March  12,  604. 
He  was  not  much  more  than  sixty. 


ST.    BENEDICT   ABBOT. 

{From  a  Portrait  by  Sassoferrato  at  Fe?'ugia,) 


IV 


ICONOCLAST    EMPERORS    AND    LOMBARD    KINGS 


(604-739) 


Between  a  dying  system  and  one  waiting  to  be 
born,  the  Pope  stood,  as  it  were,  undecided  for  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years  after  Gregory.  His  mis- 
sionaries had  gone  out  West  ;  but  he  in  the  Lateran 
could  not  shake  himself  free  of  Constantine's 
successors,  ruling  by  an  Exarch  at  Ravenna,  by  a 
Dux  Romanus  in  the  Imperial  City,  and  in  the  South 
by  their  military  captains.  On  every  side  the  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus  felt  a  power  too  strong  for  him.  To 
rebel  was  not  in  his  thoughts  ;  still  less  would  he 
or  the  citizens  of  Rome,  proud  though  degenerate, 
exchange  the  tyranny  of  the  Empire  for  the  hated 
Lombard  yoke.  And  what  of  the  P" ranks  ?  Their 
time  was  not  come.  Relations  once  frequent  be- 
tween the  Pope  and  the  Merovingians,  seem  to  have 
died  away  in  the  seventh  century.  Councils  were 
seldom  called  by  the  P'rench  bishops — only  eight  are 

recorded — and  the   petty   kings,  their   wives,   concu- 

64 


DUKES   IN  ITALY  65 

bines,  nobles,  and  serfs  offer  the  dramatis  personce  of 
a  horrid,  blood-stained  play,  in  which  scarcely  a  trace 
of  human  kindness  is  discernible.  Clovis  had  given 
monasteries  the  right  of  sanctuary  ;  too  often  they 
were  prisons  into  which  reluctant  but  defeated  royalty 
was  thrust,  its  head  shaved,  and  a  gown  instead  of  a 
soldier's  mail  upon  its  back,  to  meditate  vengeance 
on  the  next  occasion.  From  these  kings,  voluptuous, 
cowardly,  and  imbecile,  nothing  could  be  hoped. 

Yet  the  Byzantine  rule  in  Italy  was  doomed.  With 
the  Lombard  invasion  (569)  the  old  order  had  come 
to  an  end.  Always  advancing,  the  new  race  drove 
before  it  to  the  sea,  to  Rome,  Naples,  and  Otranto, 
what  was  left  of  the  Imperial  troops.  In  650  the 
Lombard  Duke  of  Beneventum  held  the  South,  while 
his  lord  the  King  reigned  at  Pavia  ;  the  provinces 
were  transformed  into  military  departments  ;  instead 
of  a  Count  there  was  now  over  the  cities  a  feudal 
Guastaldo  ;  and  above  these  rose  the  Dukes  of 
Beneventum,  Spoleto,  Tuscany,  Friuli.  Venice 
behind  its  lagoons  was  independent,  though  it 
acknowledged  the  Empire.  But  in  this  falling 
state,  when  the  Exarch  was  feeble  and  his  officers 
corrupt,  Byzantium  looked  to  the  Pope  as  at  once 
its  subject  and  representative,  nor  would  be  content 
unless  he  took  on  himself  the  burden  of  a  defence 
which  brought  him  only  affliction. 

In  one  hundred  and  twelve  years  (604-716),  down 
to  the  quarrel  about  image-worship,  by  which  this 
intolerable  degradation  was  violently  brought  to  an 
end,  we  reckon  twenty-five  Popes,  a  series  rivalling  in 
lack  of  historic  greatness  those  who  encumbered  or 


66      ICONOCLAST   EMPERORS   AND   LOMBARD   KINGS 

disf^raced  the  tenth  century.  Two  names  are  still 
remembered.  Honorius  (625-638),  the  victim  of  an 
imprudent  answer  to  a  captious  question  in  divinity, 
was  anathematised  by  the  Sixth  General  Council,  but 
was  otherwise  blameless.  Martin  I.  (649-655),  in 
repudiating  the  heresy  charged  upon  his  predecessor, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Theodore  Calliopas  the  Exarch. 
He  was  hurried  to  Constantinople  ;  stripped  in  the 
Emperor's  sight  before  an  innumerable  crowd,  who 
heaped  curses  upon  the  half-dead  Pontiff;  dragged 
through  the  city  with  an  iron  collar  round  his  neck  ; 
and  after  eighty-five  days  of  loathsome  imprisonment 
was  exiled  to  the  Crimea,  where  he  died.  Such  was  the 
treatment  a  Pope  might  expect  from  Emperors  who 
loved  to  be  despots  and  theologians.  His  tormentor, 
Constans  H.,  last  of  the  Byzantines  to  visit  Rome, 
spoiled  the  city  in  663  of  statues  and  works  of  art  past 
reckoning,  and  took  from  the  Pantheon  its  roof  of 
bronze.  The  sea  claimed  this  plunder,  little  of  which 
ever  reached  the  Bosporus.  But  it  was  clear  that 
Monothelite  and  Iconoclast  lords  of  slaves  would 
sooner  or  later  rouse  the  free  West  to  break  their 
bands  asunder.  The  Churches  were  drifting  towards 
separation.  Ravenna,  encouraged  to  brave  Rome,  as 
the  story  went,  by  Heraclius  and  Constantine,  saw  its 
Archbishop  Maurus  excommunicate  Pope  Vitalian, 
who  retorted  in  kind.  A  dim  shadow  of  Ghibelline 
Emperors  and  North  Italian  antipopes  looms  up  out 
of  this  fog  in  which  Latin  erudition,  and  even  the 
sense  of  history,  appear  to  be  failing  from  the  schools 
of  the  Palatine.  Agatho  in  680  can  but  apologise 
for    the    ignorance    of    his    Curia,    and    hope-   that 


THE   IMAGE-BREAKERS  6/ 

Theodore,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  a  Greek  and  a 
philosopher,  will  come  to  his  help.  So  low  had  the 
Imperial  City  fallen  !  "  The  very  profession  of  the 
clergy  is  the  knowledge  of  letters,"  says  Cardinal 
Newman,  reflecting  on  this  correspondence  ;  "  if  even 
these  lost  it,  would  others  retain  it  ?  "  Lombard  and 
Greek  were  both  enemies  of  the  Holy  See.  What  was 
to  be  the  end  of  these  things  ? 

Romans,  Greeks,  and  even  Syrians  pass  in  the  rapid 
and  obscure  Papal  succession  ;  but  Constantine,  who 
died  in  716,  was  the  last  undoubted  subject  of  an 
Eastern  Court.  The  dispute  about  images,  a  Puritan 
reform  attempted  by  the  rude  Cilician  peasant,  Leo 
the  Isaurian  (717-741),  suddenly  transported  into  the 
church  and  the  market-place  a  controversy  which 
could  not  leave  the  people  unaffected.  Instead  of 
abstract  science,  here  was  the  practice  of  religion,  the 
visible  art  and  daily  worship  now  a  custom  of  centuries, 
called  in  question  by  the  Emperor,  defended  by  Pope 
Gregory  II.,  by  Germanus,  Bishop  of  Constantinople, 
by  John  of  Damascus  (destined  to  fix  the  standard  of 
orthodoxy  for  Eastern  Christendom),  and,  above  all, 
by  the  monks,  the  multitude,  the  very  women  and 
children  who  pulled  the  ladders  from  under  sacri- 
legious officials  bent  on  defacing  the  Cross  or 
shattering  the  marble  effigies  of  the  Saints.  What 
the  Popes  had  longed  for  was  given  them — a  support 
on  which  to  lean  against  the  hitherto  unassailable 
majesty  of  Caisar.  With  them  now  were  the  people 
of  Rome,  of  every  Italian  city,  of  Ravenna  and 
Byzantium  itself.  If  Leo  the  Isaurian  had  learned 
his  lesson,  as  has  been  affirmed,  from  the  Moslems, 


68       ICONOCLAST  EMPERORS   AND   LOMBARD   KINGS 

then  Mohammed  may  be  looked  upon  as  indirectly 
the  occasion  of  the  Pope's  temporal  dominion,  with 
all  that  it  involved  during  eleven  hundred  years. 

Checked  in  their  siege  of  Constantinople  by  Leo, 
a  valiant  soldier,  the  armies  of  Islam  had  triumphed 
in  Africa  ;  the  Moors,  a  people  not  Semitic,  beginning 
their  career  of  romance  and  victory,  had  been  con- 
verted to  the  Koran;  and  in  711  Tarik  passed  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar,  to  which  he  gave  his  .name. 
Thrice  were  the  Berbers  of  the  Atlas  to  conquer 
Spain,  first  from  the  Christian  "  infidels,"  and  after- 
wards from  their  own  fellows  in  the  Mussulman  faith. 
Not  Saracens  but  Moors  achieved  this  mighty  enter- 
prise, which  in  720  brought  them  to  the  Pyrenees. 
In  Languedoc,  the  old  Roman  city  of  Narbonne  was 
their  headquarters,  whence  in  725  they  issued  to 
capture  Carcassonne,  and  destroy  Autun,  while  they 
held  Nismes  to  ransom.  Their  light  horse  swept  into 
Burgundy.  In  731  they  gave  the  shrine  of  St.  Hilary 
at  Poitiers  to  the  flames.  Odo,  Duke  of  Aquitaine, 
pressed  hard,  called  in  his  natural  enemies  the 
Franks.  Near  Poitiers,  South  and  North  met  in 
their  first  shock  of  battle  (732)  ;  Abderrahman  was 
defeated  with  unknown  loss  by  Charles  Martel,  the 
Gallo-German  chief,  whose  surname  alludes  to  Thor's 
invincible  hammer.  A  new  royal  race  had  come  out 
from  the  Vosges  mountains,  and  the  Crusades  had 
inscribed  their  great  initial  letter  of  crimson  and  gold 
on  the  chronicles  of  history. 

St.  Columban  of  Luxeuil,  it  is  said  in  his  Life,  had 
warned  Theodebert,  a  base  Merovingian,  that  the  ruin 
of  his  kingdom  was  at  hand.     From  Austrasia,  the 


JO      ICOXOCLAST  EMPERORS   AND   LOMBARD   KINGS 

country  between  Meuse  and  Rhine,  a  pathway  for 
invaders,  that  prophecy  would  now  be  fulfilled. 
Arnulf,  Bishop  of  Metz,  an  Aquitanian,  had  been 
married  before  consecration.  His  grandson  was 
Pepin,  who  defeated  the  successors  of  Dagobert  II. 
at  Testry,  near  St.  Quentin  {(i'^J^,  took  the  family  of 
Clovis  under  his  wing  as  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  and 
left  a  brave  bastard  son,  more  Pagan  than  Christian, 
this  Charles  of  the  Hammer.  His  wrestling  was 
with  Frisians,  Saxons,  Germans  of  every  tribe,  eager 
to  get  a  footing  west  of  the  Rhine.  Their  Paganism 
devoured  his  ;  Charles  found  that  the  new  Christians 
in  Germany  were  his  best  allies  ;  that  Boniface,  their 
Anglo-Saxon  Bishop,  would  be  the  stay  of  the  Franks 
and  their  unbought  lieutenant ;  that  to  keep  a  hold 
upon  Teutons  he  must  join  himself  to  the  Roman 
Pontiff.  At  home  he  behaved  as  a  despoiler  of  the 
clergy  ;  beyond  the  Alps  he  seemed  to  defend  the 
holy  place  against  Saracens,  and  might  prove  to  be 
a  willing  champion  of  the  Pope  against  the  not  less 
intolerable  Lombards. 

It  was  in  726  that  Leo  the  I  saurian  published  his 
edict  for  the  destruction  of  images.  Next  year, 
when  tumults  had  filled  the  streets  of  his  Capital, 
the  Exarch  Scholasticus  put  it  forth  in  Ravenna. 
Straightway,  and  without  prompting,  the  people 
rose.  Gregory  II.,  whose  character  and  abilities 
bore  no  proportion  to  those  of  his  great  namesake, 
watched  the  struggle  from  St.  Peter's  Chair.  His 
own  city,  like  Ravenna  itself,  was  adorned  with 
mosaics  which  depicted  Christ,  the  Virgin  Mother, 
and  the  Saints  in  glory.     No  one  could  dream  that 


GREGORY  II.    LORD    OF   ROME  /I 

the  Pope,  any  more  than  the  people,  would  relinquish 
usages  and  traditions  which  might  be  traced  on  the 
walls  of  the  Catacombs  almost  to  Apostolic  times.  But 
the  Lombards  were  now  orthodox  ;  their  King  Liut- 
prand  swooped  down  on  Ravenna,  took  the  popular 
side,  drove  out  the  Exarch,  and  overran  Pentapolis.  If 
not  the  unexpected,  this,  to  Gregory  and  his  Romans, 
was  in  the  highest  degree  abominable.  Scholasticus 
had  escaped  to  Venice  The  Pope  stirred  into  action 
the  fleet  of  these  islanders,  and  under  his  direction  it 
combined  with  troops  from  the  centre  to  get  back 
Ravenna,  which  Liutprand  for  a  moment  had 
quitted.  Such  was  the  ancient  policy  of  the 
Lateran.  Gregory  himself,  says  Duchesne,  had 
maintained  in  its  obedience  Byzantine  Italy,  from 
Istria  to  Naples.  He  now,  in  effect,  set  up  the  fallen 
Exarch;  doubtless  to  keep  at  a  distance  the  "un- 
speakable "  Lombards — as  the  Pope  terms  them  again 
and  again.  But  in  requital  threats  of  assassination 
were  made,  or  fancied  by  the  excited  populace,  on  the 
part  of  Leo's  officers  against  the  intrepid  Pontiff.  He 
was  to  be  murdered,  the  images  broken  ;  Paul  the 
Exarch  was  marching  on  Rome.  A  general  insurrec- 
tion announced  that  Italy  was  lost  to  the  Emperor. 
Eutychius,  last  PLxarch,  landed  at  Naples  ;  his  pre- 
decessor had  been  slain  in  a  riot ;  and  though 
Gregory  would  not  fav^our  open  rebellion,  the  Cap- 
tains began  to  set  up  for  themselves ;  Lombards 
joined  with  Romans  in  a  common  league  ;  and  the 
citizens  pledged  their  oath  to  liv^e  and  die  with  their 
orthodox  Bishop.  In  this  act  of  spontaneous  surrender 
we  mark  the  birth  of  the  Popes'  sovereignty  over  Rome. 


72      ICONOCLAST  EMPERORS  AND   LOMBARD  KINGS 

"  Their  noblest  title,"  says  Gibbon,  "  is  the  free  choice 
of  a  people  whom  they  had  redeemed  from  slavery." 
Liutprand,  however,  was  playing  a  double  game. 
If  the  Pope,  as  it  appears  from  his  passionate 
epistles  to  Leo  (729),  had  in  view,  chiefly  or  alto- 
gether, the  defence  of  images,  and  did  not  aim 
at  independence,  the  Lombard,  a  wily  politician, 
enlarged  his  territory  by  the  Dukedom  of  Spoleto, 
and  was  ready  (or  so  he  pretended)  to  let  the  Exarch 
have  his  Rome  again.  He  came  south  ;  entered  the 
Holy  City  ;  threw  himself  at  Gregory's  feet  ;  dedi- 
cated sword,  crown,  and  cloak  on  the  altar  of  St. 
Peter's.  A  truce  was  patched  up.  The  Exarch 
withdrew  to  Ravenna.  In  730  a  Council  at  Rome 
condemned  the  image-breakers  and  rejected  Leo 
from  its  communion.  But  Gregory  neither  deposed 
the  Emperor  nor  released  his  Italian  subjects  from 
their  allegiance,  though  he  may  have  winked  at  their 
withholding  of  the  customary  tribute.  Leo,  not 
very  wisely,  confiscated  the  Papal  estates  in  Sicily 
and  Calabria  ;  tore  Illyricum  from  the  Western 
Patriarchate  ;  and  demanded  a  heavier  capitation 
tax.  At  this  juncture,  in  731,  the  Pope  died,  and 
Gregory  III.,  a  Syrian,  reigned  in  his  stead.  This 
was  the  man  who,  in  739,  sent  to  Charles  Martel  the 
keys  of  St.  Peter's  shrine  and  filings  from  his  chains, 
with  the  title  of  Patrician  or  Roman  Consul,  as  a  lure 
which  might  tempt  him  over  the  Alps.  For  Liut- 
prand had  come  to  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  the  lamps 
ad limina  Apostoloi'urn,  in  St.  Peter's  itself,  were  seized 
and  borne  away  by  his  marauding  troops.  Would 
the  Eternal  City  become  the  Lombard  capital  ? 


THE   DONATION   OF   PEPIN 


(739-772) 


We  have  reached  the  turning-point  in  Papal 
history.  There  had  been  a  Duke  of  Rome,  resident 
in  the  Imperial  house  on  the  Palatine  ;  an  excrcitus 
Romanns,  which  comprised  the  nobles  who,  however 
mixed  their  blood,  fabled  a  descent  from  the  Cornelii 
and  the  other  Patricians  of  classic  renown  ;  last,  but 
greatest,  the  Pontifex  Maximus  held  his  court  with  its 
array  of  clerics  about  the  Church  of  the  Saviour. 
And  how  did  he  stand  to  Duke  and  nobles  ?  While 
the  Emperor  governed,  he  was  a  subject,  his  election 
not  valid  till  confirmed  from  the  Golden  Horn  ;  and 
the  "  army,"  which  claimed  to  be  the  Roman  People, 
shared  in  his  naming  with  the  "  venerable  clergy." 
Now,  was  the  Duke  to  continue  when  the  Emperor 
had  ceased?  If  not,  the  whole  of  Italy  might  be 
absorbed  into  the  Lombard  Kingdom,  and  the  Pope, 
exercising  a  purely  spiritual  jurisdiction,  would  still 
have  been  a  subject,  liable  to  the  military  chief  at 
Pavia,  whose  government  he  would  consecrate  but 
never  share. 

73 


74  THE   DONATION    OF  PEPIN 

Neither  Pontiff  nor  citizens  felt  disposed  to  accept 
this  solution.  Religion,  we  are  to  understand,  was 
not  at  stake.  Lombard  Kings,  Liutprand,  Rachis, 
Astolf,  Didier,  were  as  orthodox  and  pious  according 
to  the  standard  of  the  age  as  any  Carlbvingians. 
They  founded  monasteries  and  more  than  once 
retired  into  them  ;  in  gifts  to  the  sanctuary  they  were 
lavish  ;  their  reverence  for  St.  Peter  did  not  fail,  even 
when  his  keys  were  fashioned  into  spears  to  smite 
them  by  the  invading  F>anks.  But  once  admitted 
within  the  walls  of  Rome,  they  could  not  be  thrust 
out.  Their  rule  would  not  pass  with  transient  ex- 
peditions ;  they  were  at  home  in  Italy,  the  Franks 
must  always  be  foreigners.  Intervention  was  one 
thing,  conquest  another.  P>om  Pepin  to  Napoleon 
III.  French  armies  have  come  down  into  the  Roman 
States  ;  but  on  the  morrow  they  are  gone,  and  Pope 
and  people  exult  in  their  departure.  With  a  Patrician 
whose  centre  of  government  should  be  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  Paris,  or  Worms,  Rome  might  be  free  ; 
then  the  question  would  arise  whether  the  Pope  was 
to  rule  the  army,  or  the  army  to  set  up,  pull  down, 
pursue  to  death,  or  welcome  in  triumph  its  own 
Pontiff.  Unaided,  these  turbulent  sons  of  Romulus 
could  not  beat  back  the  hardy  Alpine  mountaineers. 
At  their  bidding  it  was  that  Gregory  III.  and  his 
successors,  who  shared  the  popular  sentiment,  called 
aloud  to  Martel,  Pepin,  and  Charlemagne. 
•  The  majesty  of  Rome,  although  an  Emperor  no 
longer  bore  it  up  in  the  West,  survived  under  the 
name  of  the  Republic,  and  in  the  prerogatives  of  St. 
Peter.     At  a  distance  this  wonderful  charm,  religious 


POPE   ZACHARY  75 

and  full  of  mystery,  wrought  its  effect.  What  was  a 
Lombard  captain  of  yesterday,  when  compared  with 
the  shadow  of  Augustus,  or  with  a  living  Pope? 
Franks,  in  whom  the  Christian  faith  was  now  after 
long  eclipse  coming  to  the  light  again,  would  have 
looked  on  calmly  while ,  the  Roman  exercitus  fled 
before  Liutprand.  But  if  the  Apostle  sent  for  them, 
his  command  would  not  fall  on  deaf  ears. 

Yet  Charles  Martel,  with  Germans  and  Moors  upon 
his  hands,  might  have  been  unable,  as  he  was  perhaps 
unwilling,  to  take  the  decisive  step.  Gregory's  loud 
laments  had  not  been  answered,  when  both  the  high 
contracting  parties  died,  within  a  month  of  each  other, 
in  741.  A  man  of  remarkable  character,  a  Greek 
named  Zachary,  endowed  with  no  little  share  of  that 
firmness  which  we  attribute  to  the  Roman,  succeeded. 
He  met  the  pious  though  aspiring  Liutprand  in  742  at 
Terni,  overawed  him  by  a  fervent  appeal  to  the  in- 
visible powers,  and  won  from  him  all  the  estates  of 
the  Church  in  Sabine  territory,  as  well  as  Narni,  Sutri, 
and  Ancona.  A  truce  of  thirty  years  with  the  Roman 
Dukedom  was  agreed  upon.  Zachary  made  a 
triumphant  march,  on  his  return,  from  the  Pantheon 
to  St.  Peter's,  amid  the  plaudits  of  his  people.  But 
Liutprand  assaulted  Ravenna.  Once  more  the  Pope 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  save  the  Exarch ;  he 
travelled  in  state  to  Pavia  ;  confronted  and  subdued 
his  Lombard,  who  gave  back  what  he  had  taken,  to 
die  soon  after  with  the  reputation  of  a  Saint.  Rachis 
followed  him  upon  the  throne.  He  too,  in  749,  broke 
the  peace,  and  invested  Perugia.  Zachary  sought 
him  out,  enlarged    on  the  favourite    medieval    text. 


76 


THE  DONATION   OF  PEPIN 


"  All  is  vanity,  except  to  love  God  and  keep  His 
commandments,"  drew  him  from  the  camp  to  a 
monastic  life,  and  saw  him  a  votary  at  Monte  Cassino. 
There  he  must  have  been  the  associate  of  Carloman, 
Charles  Martel's  first-born  son,  who  had  quitted  the 


POPE   ZACHARY,    A.D.    752. 


Mayoralty   of  the    Palace    in    favour   of  Pepin,    his 
younger  brother. 

Now  came  to  pass  the  momentous  series  of  events 
which  bound  in  everlasting  alliance  the  French  nation 
with  St.  Peter  at  Rome.  Pope  Zachary  was  to  reap 
where   Gregory  the  Great   had    scattered    the    seed. 


11 

During  the  Merovingian  period,  Christian  and  indeed 
natural  virtues  had  seemed  to  die  utterly  away  among 
the  Franks.  Queens  like  Fredegonde  and  Brunehaut, 
Furies  in  mortal  shape,  had  made  even  that  genera- 
tion pale  with  astonishment  at  their  awful  wickedness. 
Irish  monks,  of  whom  Columban  was  the  most 
illustrious  by  his  severity  of  life  and  strength  of  pur- 
pose, had  thundered  against  the  heathen  vices  which 
they  could  not  extirpate.  They  preached  to  the 
Neustrians,  the  Swiss,  the  Italians ;  but  they  turned 
aside  from  the  German  folk,  although  Kilian  at 
Wiirzburg,  and  the  philosophic  Virgilius  at  Salzburg, 
have  left  their  names  as  Apostles  across  the  Rhine. 
An  Englishman  of  Devon  it  was,  Winfred  or  Boniface, 
who  now  stood  forth,  a  fine  historic  figure,  to  unite 
the  Pope  with  the  dynasty  of  Pepin  and  to  create 
in  these  immense  Teutonic  forests  the  churches, 
townships,  and  Christian  peoples  that  should  later 
on  come  into  view  as  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

Boniface  (680-756)  made  several  journeys  to  the 
shrine  of  the  Apostles.  He  was  submissive  in  teach- 
ing as  in  station  to  "  St.  Peter  and  his  Vicar."  When 
he  founded  the  See  of  Mayence,  which  was  to  be 
supreme  over  Christian  Germany,  and  that  of  Cologne, 
second  only  to  Mayence,  he  insisted  that  they  should 
always  ask  for  the  pallium — the  token  of  spiritual 
authority — from  the  Pope.  His  orthodox  mind 
could  not  endure  the  errors,  as  he  thought  them,  of 
Scots  and  speculative  dreamers  like  Adalbert, 
Clement,  Samson,  and  the  more  learned  Virgilius. 
The  same  frank  English  temper  led  him  to  remark 
on  the  venality  and  corruption  of  which  he  heard 


yS  THE   DONATION   OF  PEPIN 

as  prevailing  in  the  Roman  Court.  Living  as  a  Saint, 
he  died  a  missionary  and  a  martyr,  among  the  wild 
Frisians,  in  756.  But  his  work  was  accomplished. 
Four  years  earlier  he  had  anointed  Pepin  King  of 
France  in  the  name  of  Pope  Zachary. 

It  was  a  deed  without  precedent.  No  Pope  had 
hitherto  given  away  kingdoms  or  adjudicated  between 
the  nominal  sovereign,  legitimate  but  helpless,  and 
his  lieutenant,  who  could  only  be  a  usurper  if  he 
mounted  the  throne.  Pepin  sent  his  priest,  Fulrad, 
and  Burchard,  Bishop  of  Wiirzburg,  to  consult 
Zachary,  before  the  nobles  elected  him.  Then  the 
Pope  authorised  what  the  nation  executed  at  Soissons 
in  their  Field  of  Mars  ;  he  spoke  a  winged  word, 
"  Let  the  man  be  called  king  that  in  fact  is  .so,"  and 
it  was  done.  Childeric,  stripped  of  the  dignity  to 
which  he  had  been  born,  found  himself  a  prisoner  in 
a  convent.  While  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  laws  of 
succession  were  unsettled  in  a  barbarous  age  ;  that 
the  Merovingians  had  long  lost  their  grip  of  the 
sceptre ;  and  that  Pepin's  ancestors  had  rendered 
inestimable  service  to  France  as  to  Christendom,  it 
is  impossible  to  deny  that  this  was  a  revolution, 
peacefully  carried  out,  with  the  consent  and 
consecration  of  the  highest  religious  authority. 
Could  the  Pope  give  crowns  ?  Then  he  could  take 
them  away.  Such  was  to  be  the  public  law  of 
Europe  during  the  next  six  hundred  years,  never  in 
principle  resisted  until  Philip  the  Fair  withstood  and 
overcame  Boniface  VIII.  It  is  significant  that  the 
same  nation  which  now  accepted  a  ruler  at  the  Pope's 
hands  should  be  the  first  to  proclaim  that  kings  are 


NEW  FRENCH  DYNASTY  79 

inviolable,  and  their  crowns  beyond  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Canon  Law. 

Writing  to   the   iconoclast   Leo,   Gregory   II.   had 
warned  him  that   the  Popes  were  the  bond  of  union 
and  mediators    of  peace  between    East   and    West. 
"  The  eyes  of  the  nations  are  fixed  on  our  humility," 
continued  the  Pontiff;  "they  revere  as  a  God  upon 
earth  the  Apostle  St.  Peter,  whose  image  you  threaten 
to  destroy."     Language  as  bold   as  it  was   affected, 
yet   no  fiction.     In    the    memorable   transaction    by 
which  Pepin's  dynasty  became  legitimate  and  sacred, 
St.  Peter  had  done  his  part.     It  remained  that  the 
Prankish  monarch  should  do  his.     Constantine  V.,  an 
able  ruler  who  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  dark  and 
probably  calumnious  legend — for,  like  his  father,  he 
pursued  images  with  a  Mohammedan  fury — still  laid 
claim   to    Rome  and    the    Exarchate.     Had  he  not 
defaced  the  icons,  he  would  have  found  an  ally  in  his 
Roman    Bishops,    reluctant   to    face    the    unknown, 
counselling  moderation  lest  a  vigorous  tyrant  in  Pavia 
should  leap  into  the  saddle  and  ride  them  down  in 
their  own  city.     But  Astolf,  the  Lombard,  saw  in  the 
abandoned    provinces    a   desirable   prey.      He   took 
Ravenna  for  the  last  time  ;  extinguished  the  Byzan- 
tine government ;  and  held  all  as  far  as  Perugia  (which 
escaped    him)    before    751.      Not    long    afterwards 
Zachary  left  the    Papal    Chair  to   Stephen    II.,  who 
made  a  truce  of  forty  years  with  his  Northern  assail- 
ants, to  be  broken  in  four  months.     At  this  point  we 
reach  the  Prankish  descent  upon  Italy  ;  the  Donation 
of  Pepin  ;  and  the  establishment  of  St.   Peter  as  a 
secular  prince. 


8o  THE   DONATION   OF  PEPIN 

Southern  chroniclers  are  never  to  be  trusted  when 
they  speak  of  their  foes.  Violent  terms,  scarlet  adjec- 
tives, which  the  facts  will  not  warrant,  appear  to  them 
as  lawful  in  war  as  any  other  weapons.  That  the 
Lombards  despised  the  Romans  and  called  them  liars 
and  poltroons,  full  of  lust  and  greed,  we  know  from 
Liutprand.  And  that  the  Romans,  though  too  pro- 
bably the  offspring  of  slaves  or  fugitives  from  every 
province  of  the  Empire,  scorned  these  tall,  fair-faced 
men  of  the  North  as  barbarians,  is  manifest  in  every 
line  which  Gregory  the  Great  and  succeeding  Popes 
have  left  us  concerning  them.  Had  the  Lombards 
told  their  own  story,  it  would  doubtless  be  still  more 
evident  than  it  is  now  that  the  quarrel  which  brought 
Pepin  over  Mont  Cenis  was  on  behalf  of  the  Roman 
Republic,  to  which  the  Pope  served  as  a  figure-head, 
and  that  it  did  not  originate  in  the  high  region  of 
doctrine  or  discipline. 

Astolf  demanded  once  and  again  that  the  Imperial 
City  should  submit,  pay  a  yearly  poll  tax  of  a 
golden  crown,  and  leave  him  in  possession  of 
all  he  had  seized  in  Central  Italy.  He  could 
not  win  the  city,  but  he  dug  up  and  carried  away 
the  bodies  of  certain  Saints,  to  be  laid  in  a  shrine 
at  Pavia.  Some  fruitless  negotiations  follov/ed. 
The  Pope  sent  urgent  messages  to  the  French  King, 
and  in  return  Chrodegang,  Bishop  of  Metz,  and  the 
legendary  Duke  Autchaire  or  Ogier,  were  despatched 
as  ambassadors  to  the  Lateran.  From  Constanti- 
nople an  injunction,  which  Stephen  humbly  accepted, 
bade  him  journey  to  the  Lombard  Court  and  there  in 
person  demand   the  restoration  of  Ravenna.     With 


STEPHEN  II.   IN  FRANCE  8 1 

his  Frankish  protectors  he  set  out,  October  14,  753. 
The  Imperial  Legate  was  in  his  train.  On  arriving, 
despite  Astolf's  menaces,  he  spoke  up  boldly,  offered 
gifts,  and  pleaded  with  tearful  eloquence  for  the 
Greek  Emperor's  lost  provinces.  But  his  heart  was 
with  Rome,  and  only  his  words  for  the  Exarchate. 
Astolf  would  yield  nothing  ;  but  he  did  his  utmost  to 
keep  the  Pontiff  from  prosecuting  his  expedition 
across  the  Alps.  They  separated  ;  the  Byzantine 
Legate,  with  what  nobles  had  accompanied  him,  went 
back  to  Rome,  and  disappears  from  history.  Stephen 
and  his  clerks  crossed  the  St.  Bernard  ;  stayed  a 
moment  at  the  abbey  of  St.  Maurice ;  received  a 
welcome  from  Prince  Charles  at  Langres  ;  and  on  the 
Epiphany,  January  6,  754,  found  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  Pepin  at  his  rude  Teutonic  castle  of 
Ponthion. 

The  King  prostrated  himself  and  held  Stephen's 
bridle  ;  the  Pope  with  his  attendants,  amid  solemn 
chantings,  knelt  in  sackcloth  before  this  mighty  pro- 
tector, imploring  his  aid  for  St.  Peter  and  the  Roman 
Republic.  Still  the  argument  ran  upon  "  restitution," 
but  Pepin  brushed  it  aside.  He  would  neither  defend 
tl^  Eastern  Emperor  nor  quarrel  with  him.  He  was 
all  for  peace  and  accommodation  between  the  Lom- 
bards and  St.  Peter.  So  the  winter  passed.  Stephen, 
in  the  monastery  of  St.  Denis,  sickened  and  recovered. 
Again  he  crowned  the  successful  usurper,  his  wife, 
and  his  sons.  From  Monte  Cassino  an  unexpected 
messenger  had  arrived  to  take  part  with  Astolf — the 
royal  monk,  Carloman,  Pepin's  brother.  It  was  a 
bootless  errand.     He  could  not  be  suffered  to  stand 

7 


82  THE  DONATION   OF  PEPIN 

in  the  way  of  these  great  impending  events  ;  and  in 
the  seclusion  of  a  religious  cloister  at  Vienne  he 
expired  with  almost  dramatic  propriety.  After  long 
debates,  war  was  decided  upon  at  Quercy-sur-Oise, 
in  a  popular  assembly,  or,  as  we  should  say,  a  Parlia- 
ment, Easter  754.  •  The  passage  of  the  Alps  followed 
at  once.  Astolf  was  besieged  in  Pavia ;  without 
serious  fighting  he  gave  up  his  conquests,  at  least  on 
paper ;  and  the  Franks  went  home.  Stephen,  dis- 
trustful but  impotent,  returned  to  his  own  place.  His 
fears  were  well-founded.  On  New  Year's  Day,  756, 
the  Lombard,  with  three  divisions  of  a  plundering 
army,  was  encamped  round  the  Roman  gates  from 
the  Salarian  to  San  Pancrazio. 

Fresh  envoys  from  Stephen,  at  their  head  the 
martial  Abbot  Warneharius — a  Frank  who  delighted 
in  his  armour  and  set  the  bad  example  of  a  fighting 
churchman,  too  frequent  during  the  Middle  Age — got 
clear  of  the  Lombards,  and  crossing  the  sea  reached 
Pepin.  They  bore  three  letters,  couched  in  terms 
of  deepest  affliction  ;  the  third,  addressed  to  king, 
nobles,  and  army,  was  written  in  the  person  of  St. 
Peter,  and  already  spoke  of  the  Gesta  Dei  per 
Francos  in  terms  which,  if  inspired,  were  flattering. 
Myth  and  history  embraced  ;  the  battle  was  won. 
A  second  time  Pepin  descended  with  his  warriors 
from  the  Cenis  ;  once  more  Astolf  yielded  ;  the  Greek 
Silentiary  John  begged  for  the  lands,  the  cities  which 
his  master  had  not  been  able  to  conquer.  He  was 
answered  with  civil  scorn.  Devotion  to  the  Apostle, 
and  the  hope  of  pardon  for  his  sins,  had  been  the 
motives  which  actuated  the  Frank  who  now,  by  right 


TEMPORAL    POWER   FOUNDED  83 

of  conquest,  made  over  all  his  winnings  to  the  Holy 
See.  Fulrad,  another  warlike  Abbot,  in  command  of 
a  small  detachment,  passed  from  town  to  town, 
accompanied  by  the  Lombard  commissioners  ;  he  re- 
ceived their  keys  from  a  rejoicing  people,  and  laid 
them  on  the  shrine  of  St.  Peter  along  with  the  legal 
document  which  conveyed  them  to  their  new  lord. 
This  is  Pepin's  never-to-be-forgotten  Donation. 

Its  text  can  no  longer  be  found.  But  in  Stephen's 
Life,  as  told  by  the  Liber  Pontificalis,  a  catalogue  of 
the  territories  informs  us  that  Comacchioand  Ravenna 
passed  to  the  Pope  with  all  the  country  between 
Apennines  and  Adriatic,  from  Forli  in  the  north  to 
Jesi  and  Sinigaglia  in  the  south — dead  cities  now, 
not  easily  reached  by  the  tourist,  and  with  nothing 
to  show  but  antiquities.  Ancona  was  not  included 
nor  the  rest  of  the  March.  Faenza,  Imola,  Bologna, 
Ferrara  lay  outside  the  royal  grant.  Except  Narni, 
this  so-called  restitution  comprised  no  more  than 
Astolf  had  taken — the  Exarchate  and  Pentapolis  in 
their  latest  period.  The  Roman  republicans  still 
wondered  if  they  could  get  again  what  Liutprand 
had  borne  away,  and  round  off  their  possessions  with 
Bologna  and  Osimo. 

Yes,  it  might  be,  when  Astolf  to  their  delight  was 
killed  out  hunting,  and  his  brother  Rachis,  the  monk 
of  Monte  Cassino,  called  to  succeed  him,  was  opposed 
by  the  Duke  of  Istria,  Desiderius.  Pope  Stephen 
sent  Fulrad,  the  warlike  Abbot,  and  his  own  brother, 
whom  we  might  describe  as  the  Cardinal,  Paul  of  Via 
Lata,  to  this  aspiring  Duke.  The  Duke  promised, 
if  he  won    the    crown,  to  give   back   the   remaining 


84  THE   DONATION   OF  PEPIN 

cities,  Ferrara,  Ancona — whatever  they  demanded. 
Desiderius  became  king ;  Stephen  wrote  to  Pepin 
with  transports  of  joy ;  he  was  now,  in  a  manner, 
lord  paramount  of  Italy.  Rachis,  at  the  Pope's 
order,  retired  to  his  convent.  But  the  crowned 
Lombard  kept  only  half  his  promise,  and  fresh 
troubles  came  in  sight. 

At  this  stage  a  series  of  deplorable  events  in  Rome, 
to  be  often  repeated  amid  fury  and  bloodshed,  must 
engage  our  unwilling  attention.  Stephen  died  in  757. 
He  belonged,  it  would  appear,  to  a  noble  rather  than 
a  clerical  family — we  will  explain  how  much  this 
meant  in  due  course — and  his  brother  Paul  was 
elected,  not  without  opposition  from  Theophylact,  a 
name  which  recurs  with  tragic  frequency  in  the 
Roman  annals.  Paul  was  severe:  his  exactions  were, 
large,  his  prisons  crowded  ;  and  the  Imperial  Law, 
which  he  took  over  with  his  new  dominion,  inflicted 
death  where  Franks  or  Lombards  would  have  allowed 
wehrgelt,  or  a  fine.  He  began  speedily  to  be  detested 
as  a  tyrant ;  but  his  victims  or  enemies  bided  their 
time.  No  sooner  was  he  elected  than  he  wrote  to  Pepin, 
interposed  between  Desiderius  and  the  rebel  Dukes 
of  Spoleto  and  Beneventum,  sought  for  them  (though 
they  were  clearly  in  the  wrong)  a  French  protectorate, 
and  urged  on  the  Lombard  that  he  should  fulfil  his 
engagements.  Pepin  received  these  overtures  with 
politic  serenity.  But  he  declined  to  cross  the  Alps 
any  more.  His  envoys  made  peace  on  the  principle, 
"  Keep  what  you  have  got  and  be  satisfied."  Paul 
submitted,  perhaps  because  the  Greek  Emperor  was 
holding  out  a  hand  to  France,  where  the  veneration 


ROMAN   SACRILEGES  85 

of  images  had  never  struck  deep  root.  The  French 
king  steered  a  middle  course  ;  he  made  Desiderius  a 
sort  of  Vicar  in  Italy,  left  the  religious  question  to  the 
Pope,  and  kept  the  peace.  We  shall  have  occasion, 
not  once  or  twice,  to  contrast  the  moderation  of  these 
French  Constantines,  when  Roman  affairs  call  them 
in,  with  the  intense  and  blind  fury  which  seems 
indigenous  to  the  City  on  the  Seven  Hills.  It  was 
now  to  burst  forth  like  a  volcano,  throwing  up  ashes 
and  fire. 

Paul  was  dying  in  y6y  when  Toto,  Duke  of  Nepi, 
broke  into  the  city  with  an  armed  band.  He  repre- 
sented the  nobles,  who  could  not  endure  that  a  priest 
and  his  acolyths  should  rule  over  them.  Toto  would 
not  have  scrupled  at  murdering  a  Pope  ;  but  Chris- 
topher, who  had  been  Paul's  Secretary  of  State, 
prevented  this  horrible  sacrilege  ;  yet  he  could  not 
hinder  the  monstrous  Duke  from  seizing  the  Lateran 
(Paul  had  now  expired)  and  proclaiming  his  brother 
Constantine  Bishop  of  Rome.  That  the  elect  ruffian 
was  a  soldier  and  not  a  cleric ;  that  George,  Bishop  of 
Palestrina,  was  compelled  to  ordain  him  on  the  spot  ; 
and  that  the  Sunday  afterwards  he  received  episcopal 
consecration  from  this  prelate  and  two  others  at  St. 
Peter's  shrine,  throws  a  strange  and  far  from  heavenly 
light  on  the  Roman  world  of  the  eighth  century. 
Christopher  still  held  out ;  he  was  a  captive,  then  he 
escaped — but  not  till  a  year  had  passed — to  the  Court 
of  Pavia  with  his  son  Sergius,  and  came  back,  the 
Lombards  helping  him,  on  his  errand  of  revenge. 
Toto  was  killed  in  the  fight  that  ensued  ;  Constantine 
fell    into  the  victor's   hands.     The    atrocious    Greek 


86  THE  DONATION  OF  PEP  IN 

custom  of  blinding  prisoners  was  now  common, 
especially  in  Italian  tumults.  Constantine,  his 
brother  Passivus,  and  the  Bishop  Theodore  had 
their  eyes  put  out.  But  this  was  not  until  a  fresh 
Pope,  Stephen  III.,  had  been  elected — a  feeble,  good 
man,  who  let  Christopher  execute  judgment  as  he 
pleased.  When  no  more  victims  were  forthcoming, 
order  reigned  in  the  Lateran. 

Pepin  did  not  choose  to  acknowledge  Constantine  ; 
and  his  sons,  who  succeeded  him  in  768,  despatched 
no  fewer  than  thirteen  bishops  to  the  Lateran  Council, 
which  was  to  cover  up  the  irregularities  committed 
by  Stephen  III.  before  and  during  his  election.  For 
he  had  earlier  recognised  Constantine  as  Pope.  This 
unhappy  creature,  thrust  on  his  knees  in  presence  of 
the  assembly,  was  reviled,  beaten  and  flung  out,  and 
the  acts  of  his  Pontificate  burnt.  His  ordinations 
were  declared  null  and  void — a  fatal  precedent  which, 
one  hundred  years  later,  led  up  to  the  most  ignomi- 
nious of  all  the  incidents  that  have  darkened  the 
history  of  the  Popes.  Stephen  III.,  not  relishing  the 
species  of  tutelage  in  which  he  was  held  by  Chris- 
topher, triumphant  over  the  military  faction,  called 
in  Desiderius,  who  came  on  pilgrimage — he  was 
sincerely  devout,  though  shifty — during  the  Lent  of 
771.  A  revolution  was  the  consequence.  Paul 
Afiarta,  then  celebrated,  and  a  rival  of  the  Secretary, 
served  as  a  go-between  to  all  the  interests  leagued 
against  him.  Stephen,  a  captive  in  the  Lombard 
tents  round  St.  Peter's,  sent  for  Christopher  and 
Sergius,  to  whom  he  had  bound  himself  by  solemn 
oaths  ;    they  came  at   his  command  ;    he  celebrated 


PAUL   API  ART  A  8/ 

Mass  in  the  Basilica,  and  at  once  entered  Rome 
across  the  bridge  with  Desiderius,  leaving  these  men 
to  their  fate.  Gratiosus,  the  assassin  of  Toto,  whom 
Christopher  had  raised  to  a  dukedom,  now  turned 
traitor.     From  the  Apostles'  shrine  the  unhappy  pair 


i'Ol'E    HADRIAN    I.      A.D.    772. 

were  dragged  out  at  nightfall  by  Afiarta  and  led  to 
the  bridge  of  St.  Angelo.  There,  by  a  just  but  fearful 
judgment,  father  and  son  were  blinded.  As  they 
had  done  to  Constantine,  so  was  it  done  to  them. 
Christopher  died  three  days  afterwards  ;  Sergius  lived 
a  year  in  the  great  prison  of  the  Lateran.     He  was 


88 


THE   DONATION   OF  PEPIN 


drawn  thence  by  Afiarta  not  many  days  before 
Stephen's  death,  half  strangled,  and  buried  alive 
under  an  arch  in  the  Via  Merulana.  Stephen  lay 
helpless  in  the  hands  of  Desiderius,  who  could,  and 
did,  threaten  him  with  the  consequences  of  these 
murders  if  he  made  appeal  to  the  Kings  of  France. 
In  7/2  the  Pope  went  to  his  account,  and  Hadrian, 
the  future  friend  and  counsellor  of  Charlemagne, 
ascended  the  Apostolic  Chair. 


VI 


CHARLEMAGNE,   PATRICIAN    OF   ROME 


(772-800)     . 


On  an  average,  the  duration  of  a  Papal  reign  is  less 
than  eight  years.  Hadrian  I.  ruled  for  twenty-three 
(772-795).  He  stands  out  thus  between  Silvester  in 
the  fourth  century  and  Pius  VI.,  who  closed  the 
eighteenth,  by  his  near  approach  to  "  the  years  of 
Peter."  Learned,  as  the  age  reckoned  learning  ;  of 
illustrious  descent ;  of  pious  and  edifying  morals  ;  he 
satisfied  the  military  by  his  pedigree,  and  the  clergy 
by  his  devotion  to  their  cause.  Under  Afiarta,  the 
Lombard  interest  had  governed  Rome  by  proscrip- 
tions, exile,  and  murder.  Young  Carloman,  the 
French  senior  king,  meditated  vengeance  on  the 
assassins  of  Christopher  and  Sergius  ;  his  brother, 
Charlemagne  that  was  to  be,  had  married,  or,  at 
least,  had  taken  to  himself,  after  divorcing  a  previous 
wife,  Desiderata,  daughter  of  the  Lombard  chief. 
But  in  a  year  the  lady  was  sent  home  ;  Hildegard, 
of  a  great  Suabian  family,  took  her  place.     Carloman 


90  CHARLEMAGNE,   PATRICIAN   OF  ROME 

died,  and  his  children  were  set  aside  in  favour  of 
their  ambitious  uncle  in  an  assemby  near  Laon. 
Their  mother,  Gerberga,  took  the  children  and  fled 
with  them  to  the  Court  of  Desiderius,  who  now 
staked  all  on  a  decisive  throw.  He  lost,  and  his 
kingdom  came  to  an  end. 

Before  Gerberga's  arrival,  he  had  despatched  an 
embassy  to  Hadrian,  who  replied  by  sending  to  him 
Paul  Afiarta,  as  an  easy  means  of  getting  him  away 
from  the  city.  Scarcely  was  the  Chamberlain  gone, 
when  rumour  announced  that  the  Lombards  had 
seized  Faenza  and  Ferrara  ;  that  they  were  moving 
against  Ravenna  ;  and  that  Desiderius  would  insist 
on  the  coronation  of  the  exiled  French  infants  by 
Hadrian.  Into  this  scheme  Afiarta  flung  himself 
heart  and  soul.  He  boasted  that,  willing  or  unwilling, 
the  Roman  Pontiff  should  meet  the  King's  wishes. 
But  the  Pope  knew  his  man.  A  judicial  inquiry  was 
opened  at  Rome  touching  the  circumstances  under 
which  Sergius  had  been  half-strangled  and  buried 
alive.  The  guilt  of  Afiarta  came  to  light.  His 
accomplices  died  in  prison  or  were  exiled  to  Con- 
stantinople. The  grand  culprit,  arrested  by  Hadrian's 
orders  in  Ravenna,  confessed  his  crime,  and  before 
the  Pope  could  deliver  him  out  of  his  enemy's 
keeping,  was  put  to  death  by  the  Archbishop  and 
the  Consular  as  a  friend  to  the  Lombards.  Thus 
broke  up  in  tempest  the  unnatural  peace  between 
Rome  and  Pavia.  We  seem  to  discern  in  Afiarta 
the  strong  man  of  action,  unscrupulous  and  bloody, 
but  a  Roman  patriot,  whose  alliance  with  the  Italians 
of  the  North  meant  death  to  the  foreign  invader. 


FRENCH  DESCENT   ON  LOMDARDY  9 1 

By  his  Dukes  of  Spoleto  and  Beneventum,  the 
Lombard  still  -  wasted  St.  Peter's  patrimony  with 
fire  and  sword.  Hadrian  sent  to  Charlemagne  at 
Thionville  (now  Diedenhofen,  since  1871),  and  his 
appeal,  which  might  have  been  unheeded,  was  enforced 
by  Desiderius,  who  marched  on  Rome  with  Carloman's 
children  in  his  train.  At  Viterbo  he  was  met  by  three 
Bishops,  charged  to  warn  him  off  under  the  menace 
of  anathema.  It  was  an  ominous  expression,  employed 
for  the  first  time  in  a  dispute  concerning  the  Temporal 
Power.  But  for  the  moment  it  had  an  effect.  The 
King  returned  to  Pavia.  Some  idle  negotiations  led 
on  to  the  expedition  which,  about  Midsummer,  773, 
came  down  by  the  valley  of  Aosta  and  Mont  Cenis, 
under  Charles  and  his  uncle  Bernard.  The  passes  were 
betrayed  to  them  by  old  Italic  natives  who  bore  no 
goodwill  to  their  Lombard  chieftains.  Adelchis,  the 
l^rince  Royal,  gained  some  advantages,  but  famine 
dispersed  his  troops  ;  he  was  compelled  to  take  refuge 
in  Verona  with  Duke  Ogier  and  Carloman's  children  ; 
the  road  lay  open  to  Pavia.  Both  the  King  and  his 
son  stood  out  manfully  behind  their  thick  walls.  No 
resistance  was  made  elsewhere.  Spoleto,  tired  of  its 
dukes,  declared  itself  subject  to  the  Holy  See. 
Ancona,  Fermo,  and  other  cities  followed  its 
example.  Hadrian  was  lord  of  Central  Italy  before 
Charles  could  grant  it  away  to  him. 

Verona  fell,  and  Adelchis  fled  to  the  Greeks.  Pavia 
would  not  surrender.  In  the  meanwhile,  Charles  came 
on  pilgrimage  to  Rome  and  was  received  (Easter,  774) 
with  the  honours  formerly  given  to  the  Exarch.  At 
St.  Peter's,  Hadrian  waited  at  the  head  of  the  great 


92  CHARLEMAGNE,   PATRICIAN  OF  ROME 

staircase  to  welcome  his  protector.  Charles — a 
notable  sight — ascended  it  on  his  knees,  kissing  the 
steps,  as  is  customary  still  when  pilgrims  go  up  the 
Scala  Santa.  The  Pope  embraced  him  ;  they  entered 
the  Basilica  hand  in  hand  ;  the  solemn  chants  re- 
sounded, and  the  ceremonies  of  Holy  Week  began. 

On  Wednesday  after  Easter  (April  6,  774)  was 
held  the  memorable  meeting  in  St.  Peter's  which 
sealed  this  transaction,  the  birthday,  in  no  questionable 
sense,  of  our  modern  Europe.  Hadrian  exhibited  a 
document,  drawn  up,  it  was  said,  at  Quercy-sur-Oise 
in  754,  which,  under  the  name  and  signature  of  Pepin 
and  his  two  sons,  made  a  present  to  the  Pope  not  only 
of  the  Exarchate  much  enlarged,  but  of  Spoleto, 
Beneventum,  Tuscany,  Corsica,  Venetia,  and  Istria. 
In  accordance  with  this  more  than  royal  donation, 
we  are  told,  Charles  had  a  new  formula  composed, 
copied,  and  solemnly  ratified.  One  document  was 
put  into  Hadrian's  keeping;  another  was  left  with  St. 
Peter  in  his  shrine.  Then  the  French  King  went 
back  to  besiege  Pavia.  It  unclosed  its  gates. 
Desiderius  with  his  Queen  Ansa  retired  from  the 
world  ;  and  at  Corbey  the  last  of  the  Lombards  lived 
and  died  a  monk,  with  the  reputation  of  saintly 
virtues. 

So  extensive  a  donation  as  this  of  Ouercy,  though 
acknowledged  by  Charles  in  public  assembly,  takes 
away  our  breath.  It  was  never  fulfilled  ;  we  ask 
whether  it  was  really  proposed.  Did  we  possess  the 
original  diploma,  we  might  judge  for  ourselves.  But 
that  parchment  has  long  since  disappeared ;  and  when 
we  reflect  on  the  manipulation  of  ancient  deeds  which 


94  CHARLEMAGNE,    PATRICIAN    OF  ROME 

the  legal  conscience  of  those  times  indulged  in  and 
thought  no  crime,  we  can  hardly  take  on  trust  a 
supposed  engagement  which  would  have  made  the 
Pope  nothing  less  than  King  of  Italy. 

In  any  case,  all  that  Charles  yielded  to  Hadrian  at 
this  time  were  certain  cities  in  Emilia;  but  even  upon 
these  Leo,  the  Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  laid  violent 
hands.  He  did  so  in  the  name  of  his  Saint,  the  martyr 
Apollinaris.  Ravennaclaimed  its  share  of  the  Lombard 
spoil.  Its  first  Bishop,  the  story  said,  was  a  disciple 
of  St.  Peter  ;  he  could  not  be  overlooked  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  that  Apostle's  patrimony  which  was  going 
forward.  The  late  vassals  of  the  Exarch  were  restive 
under  what  they  called  the  Roman  yoke.  Neither 
in  spirituals  nor  in  temporals  did  they  welcome  it. 
Their  Archbishop  aimed  at  independence,  like  the 
prelates  of  Milan,  Aquileia,  and  Grado,  who  had 
never  been  content  to  bow  down  before  the  Pope  as 
Metropolitan  or  Patriarch  of  the  West.  Bishop 
Sergius  in  756  had  interpreted  Pepin's  donation  as  a 
gift  of  the  Exarchate  and  Pentapolis  to  St.  Peter  at 
Ravenna.  But  Stephen  III.  had  called  him  to  Rome; 
kept  him  there  until  he  submitted;  and  sent  him  back 
as  his  own  Vicar.  When  Sergius  died,  Michael  the 
Scriniarius  was  made  bishop,  despite  the  Pope's  re- 
monstrances, and  held  the  See  during  a  year.  Then 
Leo  came  in,  and  his  prompt  execution  of  Afiarta 
shows  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  While  seizing  the 
booty  left  after  Desiderius  had  abdicated,  he  seems 
never  to  have  lost  credit  with  Charlemagne ;  it  is 
possible  that  his  death  in  778  relieved  Hadrian  of  an 
adversary   whom  he   could    not    despise.       Ravenna 


THE    PAPAL    COURT  95 

maintained  its  pretensions.  Italy,  like  the  ancient 
Greek  world,  was  fated  to  be  the  battle-ground  of  civic 
strife,  every  little  town  against  its  neighbour,  a  prey 
to  foreign  foes  because  of  its  internecine  and  in- 
curable factions. 

Upon  Ravenna  and  the  adjacent  territory  Hadrian 
could  now  recover  his  purchase.  He  was  continually 
adding  parts  of  the  old  Sabine  country,  of  Campagna 
and  Capua,  to  his  jurisdiction  as  a  temporal  prince. 
The  Pope  was  henceforth  to  be  a  lord  over  many. 
He  numbered  his  feudal  retainers,  who  did  him  suit 
and  service.  He  held  a  brilliant  Court.  He  made 
generous  donations  to  churches,  charities,  and 
especially  to  the  city  of  Rome,  which  Hadrian 
restored  and  beautified.  His  kinsmen  were  to  share 
in  these  unexpected  honours.  Paschalis  and  Cam- 
pulus  were  nephews  of  the  Pope.  It  is  the  first 
occasion  on  which  we  hear  that  word,  destined  to 
play  a  part  as  disedifying  as  momentous  in  Papal 
history.  They  became  Primicerius  and  Sacellarius, 
heads  of  the  Chancery  and  the  Finances.  There 
were  always  two  sides,  seldom  if  ever  in  agreement, 
of  the  Roman  administration.  On  the  Palatine 
resided  the  lay  officials,  who  kept  up  the  fiction  dear 
to  that  proud  people  of  a  Republic,  free  and  sovereign 
over  Italian  cities.  At  the  Lateran  dwelt  their 
master,  when  he  was  not  their  slave  or  their  victim, 
the  Pontifex  Maximus,  with  his  twenty-five  Cardinal 
priests  and  his  seven  Deacons,  to  whom  we  must  add 
the  seven  suburban  Bishops.  The  Papal  Palace  had 
its  chamberlains,  esquires,  masters  of  ceremonies ;  it 
was  already  displaying  the  forms  of  Byzantine  hom- 


96  CHARLEMAGNE,    PATRICIAN   OF  ROME 

age,  the  prostrations,  enthronements,  and  studied 
acclamations  which  are  yet  observed  in  the  Roman 
Court.  An  officer  predestined  to  greatness  was  the 
Archdeacon,  first  of  the  seven  Cardinal  Deacons.  In 
the  Chancery  writers  were  trained  ;  a  Latin  style  not 
altogether  barbarous  was  preserved  amid  the  frightful 
grammar  and  inflated  diction  of  the  period ;  and 
notaries  superintended  the  archives,  issued  new  docu- 
ments, and  edited  old  ones  ;  nor  was  the  library  quite 
forgotten. 

But  the  entire  government  devolved  on  the  Pope, 
who,  imitating  the  policy  of  Augustus,  took  no  fresh 
title,  and  whose  wisdom  it  was  to  veil  the  transition 
from  serfdom  to  independence  under  well-worn 
phrases.  Hence  a  confusion  of  terms,  rights,  laws, 
privileges,  exemptions,  and  contradictory  claims, 
which  no  acuteness  of  jurist  or  historian  has  ever  been 
able  to  clear  up.  What  were  the  limits  of  jurisdiction 
for  the  Pope,  the  Patrician,  the  People  ?  Seek  them 
in  the  direct  power,  the  indirect  influence  that  each 
was  able  to  exert ;  when  the  waves  mounted,  the 
sands  were  covered  ;  as  ebb-tide  came  after  flood, 
again  the  sands  stretched  out  unbroken.  Living 
forces,  often  conquered,  yet  in  their  essence  uncon- 
querable, struggled,  and  to  this  day  are  struggling, 
each  for  supremacy  ;  but  the  Constitution,  the  Magna 
Charta,  which  would  reconcile  them,  has  not  yet  been 
written. 

Only  this  we  may  affirm.  Pope  and  aristocracy 
were  opposed  from  the  beginning.  It  was  not  on 
purely  religious  grounds  that  the  Pontiff  held  or 
added    to    his    temporal    dominion,    for    how    could 


FACTIONS  IN  ROME  97 

religion  be  affected  by  his  rule  over  Capua,  Ferrara, 
and  cities  across  the  Apennines  ?  Nor  did  the 
nobles,  as  a  class,  look  up  to  him  with  reverence,  or 
at  any  time  take  into  account  his  relations  to  the 
Church  at  large.  In  their  eyes  he  appeared  like 
any  other  feudal  sovereign,  whom  they  would  resist, 
dethrone,  murder  without  scruple — it  was  the  fortune 
of  war — unless  he  were  willing  to  purchase  a  doubt- 
ful immunity  by  leaving  the  government  at  their 
disposal,  and  sharing  with  them  tax  and  tribute  from 
the  subject  people.  That  divinity  which,  as  we  view 
the  Pope's  origin  and  venerable  claims,  should  have 
hedged  him  above  all  men  against  sacrilege,  never 
once  hindered  the  Romans  from  proceeding  to 
extremities  with  their  ruler,  alive  and  dead.  In  a 
ferocious  time,  they  yielded  nothing  in  barbaric 
violence  to  Franks  or  Easterns,  and  their  outlook 
on  the  world  was  bounded  by  the  walls  of  their 
blood-stained  city.  These  factions,  which  often  con- 
verted the  Lateran  or  St.  Peter's  into  a  Colosseum 
where  wild  beasts  tore  one  another,  had  sprung  up 
long  ago  in  the  days  of  Pope  Symmachus  (501),  and 
were  to  break  out  again  after  Hadrian's  decease. 
Elected  from  a  noble  house,  he  satisfied  the  Roman 
"  army "  for  a  while  ;  but  did  he  satisfy  the  clergy  ? 
VVe  may  conjecture  from  the  sequel  that  a  sullen 
discontent  brooded  on  their  wrongs  and  waited  for 
the  day  of  reaction. 

Outside  Rome  it  was  not  likely  that  the  princes 
and  potentates  overthrown  by  Charlemagne  would 
keep  still.  Hildebrand  of  Spoleto,  Rotgard  of  Friuli, 
Arichis    down    at    Beneventum,    were    all    stirring. 


^^     OF  THE        ^ 

UNIVE^^SITY 

OF 


npN 


\b. 


98  CHARLEMAGNE,    PATRICIAN   OF  ROME 

Adelchis,  now  in  the  South,  urged  them  on  ;  Bene- 
ventum  was  to  inherit  the  fallen  dignity  of  Exarch. 
In  ^^6  .Charlemagne  appeared  on  the  plains  of 
Lombardy  ;  he  slew  Rotgard  in  the  first  encounter, 
and  went  back  to  his  German  wars.  But  he  turned 
a  deaf  ear  when  Hadrian  spoke  of  the  magnificent 
promises  made  at  Quercy  and  St.  Peter's,  which  were 
not  yet  fulfilled.  When  he  came  to  Rome  the 
second  time,  in  780,  a  still  more  imposing  Lombard 
league  demanded  his  attention.  Arichis,  the  Bene- 
ventine  Exarch,  son-in-law  of  Desiderius,  and  the 
Patrician  of  Sicily,  were  laying  waste  Campania. 
Much  was  attempted,  little  achieved,  by  the  restless 
Greeks.  But,  in  the  sequel,  Hadrian  gave  up  Terra- 
cina ;  Grimbald  contrived  to  secure  the  independence 
of  Beneventum  ;  and  the  Holy  See  bartered  its 
claims  on  Spoleto  and  Tuscany  for  the  tribute  which 
these  Dukedoms  had  paid  into  the  treasury  of  Pavia. 
To  make  it  quite  clear  that  the  Donation  of  Charle- 
magne would  not  be  exceeded,  his  sons  Pepin  and 
Louis  were  crowned  Kings  of  Italy  and  Aquitaine. 
Under  a  new  form  the  Lombard  monarchy  was 
revived.  Nevertheless,  at  his  third  visit,  in  787, 
Charles  gave  his  "  friend  and  brother,"  for  whom  he 
entertained  a  sincere  affection,  Viterbo,  Orvieto,  and 
some  other  prizes  in  Roman  Tuscany. 

The  sum  appears  to  be  this.  Pope  Hadrian 
obtained  for  the  Duchy  (not  the  Province)  of  Rome 
those  limits  which  it  preserved  during  the  entire 
Middle  Age  and  almost  down  to  1870.  He  was 
master  of  the  Exarchate,  Pentapolis,  and  the  inter- 
vening  territories    as   far  as    Perugia ;    but    Spoleto 


GIFTS    TO    THE    HOLY   SEE  99 

remained  independent.  From  Charlemagne  he  had 
gained  the  Northern  provinces  and  those  on  the 
Eastern  slope  of  the  Apennines.  But  in  Rome 
and  Perugia  his  dominion,  never  precisely  deter- 
mined, was  a  substitute  for  that  of  the  Greek 
Emperors,  cast  off  by  the  people  because  of  their 
image-breaking  heresy.  Towards  the  South,  as 
Byzantium  lost,  the  Pope  won  ;  we  shall  see  him 
putting  forth  claims  by  little  and  little  to  Naples,  to 
Sicily,  and  to  all  the  Italian  islands.  By  way  of 
recompense  for  this  "  pact  of  love  and  loyalty "  on 
his  part,  Charles  is  made  Patrician. of  the  Romans. 
He  was  to  mount  higher  yet,  but  not  in  the  lifetime 
of  Hadrian,  who  died  on  December  26,  795.  The 
same  day  Leo  HI,  was  elected. 


VII 


THE    HOLY   ROMAN    EMPIRE 


(800-814) 


Such  headlong  haste,  which  in  later  times  was 
forbidden  by  regulations  touching  the  obsequies  of 
a  Pope  and  the  choice  of  his  successor,  must  have 
been  due  to  the  still  smouldering  feud  between  clergy 
and  army.  Leo's  election  is  described  as  unanimous  ; 
events  showed  by  and  by  that  it  was  not  grateful  to 
Hadrian's  nephews,  put  down  now  from  their  high 
offices  of  dignity  and  emolument.  At  once  Leo  sent 
to  Charlemagne,  Patrician  and  Consul,  the  certificate 
of  his  election,  with  St.  Peter's  keys  and  the  Roman 
standard — formalities  hitherto  not  observed — which 
allowed  or  invited  the  Prankish  ruler's  interposition 
as  a  judge  of  appeal,  were  the  electors  disposed  to 
make  one.  A  legate  even  was  asked  for  who  might 
receive  the  popular  oath  of  allegiance  to  Charles. 
Angilbert,  a  French  Abbot,  was  sent,  but  no  allegiance 
sworn.  In  the  Lateran  palace  Leo  built  a  triclinium, 
or  dining  hall,  which  he  adorned  with  mosaics  ;  Christ 


LEO  III.    OUTRAGED  10 1 

giving  the  keys  to  Silvester,  the  labarum  to  Constan- 
tine  ;  St.  Peter  bestowing  on  Leo  the  pallium,  and 
on  Charlemagne  the  royal  banner.  Rome  had  two 
sovereigns,  it  would  appear.  But  the  Romans 
obeyed  neither,  except  when  they  had  no  choice. 

Arn,  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  wrote  to  Alcuin  in 
798  from  the  city  that  discord  was  busy  and  the 
conduct  of  Leo  himself  not  altogether  apostolic. 
Paschalis  and  Campulus  spread  these  reports  or 
took  advantage  of  them  ;  a  conspiracy  was  formed, 
and  on  St.  George's  Day,  799,  as  the  Pope  rode  out 
in  procession,  these  discontented  churchmen  saw 
their  chance.  At  San  Silvestro  he  was  pulled  off 
his  horse  by  a  troop  of  armed  men.  Hadrian's 
Cardinal-nephews  flung  themselves  upon  him  bodily  ; 
they  did  their  best  to  tear  out  his  tongue  and  his 
eyes ;  but  not  succeeding,  dragged  him  into  the 
church,  beat  him  till  he  fainted,  and  left  him  for 
dead  in  front  of  the  altar.  Night  came,  and  he  was 
thrust  into  a  cell  at  Sant'  Erasmo  on  the  Ca^lian.  His 
assailants,  no  doubt,  supposed  that  if  he  escaped 
death,  a  blind  and  dumb  Pope  could  not  be  allowed 
to  govern  Christendom. 

But  Leo,  as  by  miracle,  recovered.  The  French 
legate,  Wirundus,  and  the  Duke  of  Spoleto,  helped 
him  to  flee  out  of  the  city.  Charlemagne  com- 
manded his  presence  at  Paderborn,  gave  him  a 
splendid  greeting,  and  sent  him  back  with  a  troop 
of  German  Counts  and  Bishops.  His  return  was  a 
triumph  ;  the  insurrection  went  out  in  smoke  ;  yet 
charges  had  been  made  and  must  be  met  if  the 
Pope's   good    name   were   not    to   be   lost    for   ever. 


I02  THE   HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

In  his  own  painted  triclinium  Leo  confronted  the 
Prankish  judges  ;  Paschah's  and  Campulus  were 
handed  over  to  the  royal  power  ;  but,  manifestly, 
until  Charles  himself  appeared  on  the  scene  no 
conclusion  would  be  reached.  He  came  once  more 
to  Rome.  On  December  i,  800,  before  clergy  and 
laity  in  St.  Peter's,  the  cause  was  opened  by  their 
secular  sovereign.  Yet  who  would  accuse  ?  And 
how  was  the  Supreme  Pontiff  to  be  judged  ?  He 
consented  to  purge  himself  by  oath  in  another 
assembly  on  December  23  —  a  humiliating  and 
dangerous  example,  in  which  the  majesty  of  the 
name  of  Leo  underwent  eclipse. 

Two  days  later  Christmas  brought  the  people 
together  again.  Mass  had  been  chanted,  and  the 
King  lay  prostrate  before  St.  Peter's  shrine,  when,  at 
a  given  signal,  the  Pope,  his  suppliant  of  yesterday, 
took  a  diadem  from  the  altar  and  set  it  on  his  brows, 
the  choir  breaking  forth  in  acclamation  :  "  To  Charles 
the  Augustus,  crowned  by  God,  great  and  pacific 
Emperor  of  the  Romans,  long  life  and  victory ! " 
His  "lauds"  followed,  as  in  the  triumphs  of  old  ;  he 
was  already  anointed,  but  pn  the  head  of  his  youthful 
son  and  namesake  the  holy  oil  was  now  poured  ;  the 
Empire  of  the  West  had  come  to  life  in  a  Prankish 
chieftain,  after  an  abeyance  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty-four  years. 

Not  the  same  as  that  which  Augustus  bequeathed 
to  his  successors.  For  the  first  time  a  Pope  had 
crowned  an  Emperor,  on  his  knees  before  St.  Peter's 
Confession.  This  was  the  everlasting  mosaic  which 
all  through  the  Middle  Ages  kings  and  nations  saw 


EQUESTRIAN    STATUE   OF   THE    EMPEROR   CHARLEMAGNE    IN    THE 

VESTIBULE  OF  ST.  peter's.     [Comocchini.) 


I04  THE    HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

above  their  heads  when  they  looked  up  to  Rome,  the 
Capital  of  Christendom.  In  their  mystic  view,  which 
deepened  as  years  went  on,  no  man  could  be  God's 
lieutenant  over  the  people  unless  crowned  and 
anointed  like  Solomon  by  the  priests  in  the  sanctuary. 
Who  was  equal  in  exploits  or  renown  to  Charles  the 
Great  ?  Yet  he  it  was,  and  not  another,  that  had 
received  the  insignia  of  royalty  from  a  Pope  in  the 
attitude  of  feudal  obeisance.  An  age  that  delighted 
in  symbols,  that  could  not  read,  and  therefore  attached 
to  visible  ceremonies  an  importance  we  scarcely  com- 
prehend, gave  to  this  Christmas  pageant  the  value  of 
those  hieratic  and  wonder-working  pictures  in  which 
its  religion  found  so  vivid  an  expression.  The  new 
Roman  Empire  was,  from  its  birth,  a  Theocracy. 

But  the  Emperor  could  not  be,  as  in  Pagan  days, 
Pontifex  Maximus,  and  this  distinction  of  persons 
should  have  warned  Pope  Leo  that  a  Charter,  or 
Concordat,  was  necessary  to  prevent  misunderstand- 
ings. None  had  been  devised  ;  the  act  of  Christmas, 
800,  has  all  the  air  of  an  impromptu  suddenly  got  up 
and  carried  into  effect  as  if  to  atone  for  the  humilia- 
tion of  two  days  previously.  A  candid  no  less  than 
ingenious  writer,  Duchesne,  has  reminded  us  that 
the  False  Donation  of  Constantine,  dating  from  774, 
alluded  to  by  Hadrian,  and  probably  the  work  of 
Lateran  scribes,  must  needs  represent  the  idea  then 
favoured  at  Rome  of  an  Imperial  but  absentee  protector. 
The  first  Christian  Emperor,  said  this  lawyer's  romance, 
had  surrendered  to  Pope  Silvester  "  all  the  provinces, 
places,  and  cities  of  Italy  or  the  regions  of  the  West." 
Could  not,  then,  Leo  yield  on  his  own  terms  such 


CHAMPIONS   OF  CHRISTENDOM  IO5 

powers  as  he  might  choose  to  a  vicar  in  temporals, 
who  would  draw  his  sword  always  on  the  Pontiffs 
behalf,  never  against  him  ?  Justinian's  Pandects 
were  forgotten  in  these  barbaric  Occidental  nations  ; 
and  though  Charlemagne  legislated  for  many  peoples, 
he  could  scarcely  write  his  name  ;  he  was  no  student 
of  law-books,  and  had  only  monks  for  jurists.  His 
actions  demonstrate  how  little  he  was  disposed  to  be 
merely  a  Papal  legate  on  the  throne.  Yet  even  an 
Emperor  must  reckon  with  captains  who  would  not 
always  obey,  and  with  a  clergy  to  whom  the  Donation 
of  Constantine  speedily  became  a  corner-stone  of 
history  and  jurisprudence.  Latin  Christendom  had 
assumed  the  form  of  a  Teutonic  Empire. 

Natural,  inevitable,  under  the  conditions  of  the 
ninth  century,  this  bold  idea,  however  imperfectly 
realised,  was  alone  capable  of  hindering  a  return  to 
the  tribal  chaos  out  of  which  order  had  been  slowly 
emerging.  It  enabled  the  Pope  to  act  on  all  ranks  and' 
dignities  throughout  the  West,  as  a  spiritual  teacher 
indeed,  but  with  a  two-edged  sword  at  his  command. 
It  gave  to  the  nations  who  have  established  their 
laws  and  carried  their  civilisation  over  all  continents 
an  outward  and  visible  unity.  When  Byzantium 
turned  more  and  more  towards  the  rising  sun,  or 
shrank  within  the  walls  of  Valens,  it  created  an 
independent,  homogeneous  Europe,  one  amid  all  its 
dissensions,  arrayed  in  a  feudal,  an  ecclesiastical 
hierarchy,  at  the  summit  of  which  sat  enthroned 
the  Pope  and  the  Emperor,  fountains  of  law,  justice 
and  religion.  In  the  august  QEcumenical  Councils  at 
the  Lateran,  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhone,  or  in  the 


I06  THE   HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

city  of  Constance,  a  Parliament  of  the  peoples  met : 
there  was  felt  and  acknowledged  the  claim  of  brother- 
hood among  Christians,  so  far  as  an  age  of  embittered 
and  ignorant  controversy  could  imagine  it.  The 
Popes,  by  their  restoration  of  the  Empire,  but  with 
the  cross  above  its  crown,  were  doing  for  our  Western 
world  that  which  Mohammed  and  his  Caliphs 
attempted  to  do  for  the  Arabs,  Persians,  Egyptians, 
and  Moors.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  conceive  that 
Europe  would  have  held  its  own  against  the  Moslem 
onset — which,  had  it  been  victorious,  must  have  put 
an  end  to  the  Christian  Church  and  what  was  left 
of  the  Roman  inheritance — did  not  this  mighty 
spiritual  force,  embodied  in  the  successor  of  St. 
Peter,  consecrate  the  Teuton,  Norman,  English,  and 
Flemish  sword,  rouse  up  host  after  host  of  princes  to 
a  distant  Crusade,  and  meet  the  fanaticism  of  Islam 
with  an  enthusiasm  derived  from  Charlemagne  and 
his  paladins,  the  champions  of  Christendom. 

It  is  time  that  we  viewed  more  closely  this  extra- 
ordinary man,  great  in  his  achievements,  his  conquests, 
his  laws  and  schools,  his  devotion  to  religious  aims, 
weak  only  in  his  passions.  The  Charlemagne  of 
legend  and  song  is  a  prodigy,  equal  to  Alexander. 
In  the  Chansons  de  geste^  he  is  everywhere  pre- 
sent, the  King  "  a  la  barbe  florie,"  whom  that  sweep- 
ing and  stately  verse  appears  to  confound  with 
Charles  Martel,  nay,  even  with  Charles  the  Bald, 
ascribing  to  him  all  the  victories,  voyages,  intrigues, 
events  of  the  court,  the  field,  the  camp,  which  send 
him  now  to  conquer  Jerusalem,  and  now  to  perish 
with  all  his  chivalry  at  Roncesvalles  or   Fontarabia. 


EPIC   OF  CHARLEMAGNE  lO/ 

The  Splendid  "matter  of  France"  had  this  Charles 
for  its  hero,  whom  it  handled  with  a  lad's  bold  and 
careless  freedom,  sometimes  carrying  him  on  uplifted 
shield,  anon  plucking  at  his  plenteous  beard  in  the 
mood  of  satire.  Chief  in  a  republic  of  princes,  the 
King  must  be  as  ready  to  strike  as  unscrupulous  in 
watch  and  ward  against  treason  ;  he  is  a  man  of 
blood  and  fire.  But  he  has  likewise  a  loud,  eloquent 
tongue,  and  the  heart,  or  call  it  the  sentimental  and 
amorous  temper,  of  the  troubadour,  with  a  veneration 
unbounded,  yet  hardly  in  our  sense  religious,  for  the 
"  Apostle  of  Rome." 

Whatever  date  we  assign  to  this  epic  poetry,  the 
figure  thus  drawn  is  not  unlike  Charles  as  history 
paints  him.  Frank  and  Gascon  by  descent,  akin  to 
priests  on  every  side,  prompt  and  far  marching  as 
Julius  Caesar,  with  a  touch  (and  more)  of  the  native 
subtlety  masked  by  courage  in  arms  which  has  ever 
characterised  the  Gallo-French ;  an  admirer  of  old 
Teutonic  ballads,  yet  willing  to  overlook  treason  in 
Paulus  Diaconus  because  he  wrote  an  elegant 
Latin ;  the  Emperor  added  to  these  qualities  an 
imposing  presence  and  stature,  which  the  Chansons 
exaggerate  beyond  human  proportions.  To  them 
he  is  a  giant  in  size  and  in  prowess — the  defender 
of  the  Cross,  the  enemy  of  the  Saracens,  who  cannot 
bear  up  against  his  onslaught.  Allowing  for  per- 
spective, the  picture  is  grandly  and  not  falsely 
conceived.  Charlemagne  inherited  from  his  ancestor, 
Martel,  the  renown  of  the  victory  of  Poitiers.  In 
establishing  the  Papacy  at  Rome  on  a  basis  of 
temporal    power,  while  he   assimilated    the    Church 


I08  THE   HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

more  than  Dante  would  have  approved  to  a  feudal 
or  secular  hierarchy,  his  acceptance  of  the  Empire 
was  a  step  towards  the  making  of  Europe.  Across 
the  Rhine  he  fought  and  subdued  in  thirty-three 
campaigns  another  enemy,  stubborn  as  the  sons  of 
the  Desert,  and  resolute  in  their  hatred  to  the  Latin 
civilisation,  the  Prankish  more  settled  life,  the 
religion  which  cursed  their  gods  as  devils,  which  cut 
down  their  sacred  oaks,  and  which  burnt  their  forest 
sanctuaries.  The  Saracens  whom  Charles  overcame 
were  the  Saxons.  He  did  not  win  great  victories, 
but  he  harried  and  drove  these  heathen  from  his  own 
frontiers  at  Worms  to  the  Lippe,  the  Weser,  the 
Elbe,  the  Baltic.  Like  Mohammed,  he  preached  with 
an  army  at  his  back.  Death  or  baptism  was  the 
choice  offered,  and  to  give  it  emphasis,  in  one  batch 
the  Emperor  massacred  four  thousand  five  hundred 
Saxons  at  Verdun  on  the  Aller. 

Violence  marked  his  conquests  ;  but  the  missionaries 
who  followed  him  were  heralds  of  peace ;  after 
repeated  efforts  at  independence  Witikind  descended 
into  the  waters  of  baptism  ;  his  barbarians  submitted 
to  the  clergy  and  paid  them  tithes,  which  was  all  that 
the  Prankish  victor  asked  of  them.  As  long  as  they 
would  be  Christians,  the  Saxons  might  be  compara- 
tively free.  Prom  787  onwards  we  trace  the  founding 
of  the  eight  chief  Bishoprics — "  religious  colonies  " 
they  have  been  rightly  termed — Minden,  Seligenstadt, 
Verdun,  Bremen,  Munster,  Hildesheim,  Osnaburg, 
Paderborn.  There  was  a  German  Church,  complete 
in  its  appointments,  richly  endowed,  and  entitled  to 
the  homage  as  well  as  the  protection  of  the  newly- 


CHURCH  AS   FEUDAL    SYSTEM  IO9 

converted  nobles,  long  before  the  German  State  could 
be  said  to  exist.  When  we  arrive  at  the  period  of  Anti- 
popes  and  Anti-emperors,  of  Bishop-Electors  arrayed 
against  lay  Dukes  in  the  Diets  of  the  Fatherland, 
it  will  not  be  unseasonable  to  remind  ourselves  that 
Mayence,  Cologne,  and  Munster  claimed  precedence 
by  their  origin  as  much  as  by  their  ecclesiastical 
dignity  of  the  great  secular  lords. 

This  twofold  Hierarchy,  of  which  Rome  in  Pope 
and  Emperor  set  the  example,  arose  over  Western 
Europe  under  Charles's  fostering  legislation.  Every 
district  had  its  Bishop  and  its  Count ;  a  county  was 
a  Diocese,  just  as  in  England  the  ancient  bishoprics 
were  conterminous  with  the  little  kingdoms  of  the 
Heptarchy.  At  the  base  a  widespread,  almost 
universal  serfdom  ;  above  that,  qualified  military 
charges,  rank  over  rank,  ascending  to  the  Markgrave, 
Count,  or  Duke,  who  held  of  the  King.  To  this 
pattern  the  Church  conformed.  Even  a  monastery 
must  be  a  feudal  tenure,  and  Bishops,  though  in  vague 
and  disputable  fashion,  held  of  the  Metropolitan,  who 
would  fain  have  had  no  master.  The  False  Decretals 
taught  him  that  he  must  suffer  appeals  from  his 
judgment  to  the  Apostolic  See — as  indeed  true 
examples  dating  far  back  were  there  to  show.  But, 
looking  at  this  early  medieval  government  as  a  whole, 
we  may  pronounce  it  to  have  been  a  confederation 
of  freebooters  with  some  semblance  of  law — a  caste 
which  disdained  to  till  the  soil,  which  would  have 
thought  commerce  a  degradation,  and  which  lived 
and  died  with   arms  in  its  hands. 

From     such    an    aristocracy     the    Bishops    were 


no  THE    HOLY   ROMAN   EMPIRE 

taken  as  a  matter  of  course;  plebeian  prelates,  if 
by  some  happy  chance  elected,  found  themselves 
in  society  as  uncongenial  as  that  of  an  English 
mess  to  an  officer  raised  from  the  ranks.  Some 
Bishoprics,  like  Clermont,  Metz,  and  it  would 
appear  Milan,  ran  in  families.  Royal  blood  had  a 
claim  on  wealthy  benefices,  and  thus  what  the 
Sovereign  gave  with  one  hand  he  took  away  with  the 
other.  Medieval  Theocracy  too  often  meant  a  Knight 
in  armour  who  was  consecrated  Bishop  that  he  might 
enjoy  the  revenues,  and  command  the  thousands  of 
serfs,  attached  to  a  Saint's  inheritance.  The  Abbot 
raised  his  troop  of  horsemen  and  rode  at  their  head  ; 
the  Bishop  received  a  training  for  the  field,  but  little 
or  none  for  the  altar.  When  Europe  was  one  vast 
camp — which  is  a  true  description  of  it  during  the 
centuries  before  Venice,  Pisa,  Genoa,  and  the  Hanse 
Towns  achieved  commercial  greatness — Ecclesiastics 
were  military  chaplains,  inured  to  battle  and  blood- 
shed, who,  even  if  they  escaped  and  set  up  their 
abode  in  the  wilderness,  saw  their  Cluny,  their 
Clairvaux,  too  soon  endowed  with  lands,  tenants, 
and  public  offerings,  the  price  of  which  was  always 
absorption  in  the  feudal  State. 

Among  barbarians,  the  tribe  had  claimed  the 
man,  but  land  was  a  fleeting  possession.  Now,  every 
individual  was  adscriptus  glebae ;  the  Church,  tenant- 
in- chief  of  a  third,  a  half,  or  two-thirds,  of  the  whole 
country,  had  become  a  feud  ;  its  Gospel  character 
was  strangely  disguised  in  a  parti-coloured  garment, 
stained  not  unfrequently  with  sanguine  hues.  Its 
enormous  and   ever-growing  wealth  tempted    Kings 


PRANKISH    VICTORIES  I  I  I 

not  so  much  to  plunder  as  to  appropriate  these 
treasures,  by  the  hands  of  their  children,  legitimate 
or  bastard,  and  to  trade  in  the  selection  of  the 
unfittest  to  stalls,  canonries,  abbacies,  mitres  ;  until 
the  world  rang  with  a  sinister  cry  of  "  Simon  Magus," 
the  detestable  and  ubiquitous  Heresiarch,  who  bought 
or  sold  for  money  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  in  every 
Church  throughout  the  West. 

When  he  had  overthrown  the  Saxons,  Charles 
found  fresh  enemies  behind  them,  the  Wiltzi  or  Slavs 
on  the  Oder.  From  these  he  took  hostages,  and 
marched  on  the  Huns,  encamped  in  their  wooden 
huts  amid  swamps,  but  gorged  with  the  spoils  of 
Constantinople.  They  underwent  defeat  at  the 
Raab ;  it  seemed  that  a  Frankish  Emperor  would 
emulate  the  feats  of  Trajan,  extend  his  dominion  to 
the  Danube,  and  appear  as  the  neighbour  no  less  than 
the  rival  or  suitor  of  Irene,  soon  to  be  Empress  of  the 
East.  He  was  recalled  by  troubles  in  Aquitaine, 
whither  Hixem,  the  Moorish  Caliph,  had  penetrated, 
and  by  a  revolt  of  the  Saxons.  But  his  son,  travers- 
ing the  Theiss,  defeated  the  Huns  a  second  time, 
captured  their  ring,  or  stronghold,  and  sent  home  an 
incalculable  booty.  The  Tartar  Chagan  professed 
himself  a  Christian  ;  his  power  was  annihilated. 

At  Aix-la-Chapelle  it  might  have  been  imagined 
that  Rome  in  all  its  majesty  was  about  to  begin  a 
second  Augustan  age.  Vassal  or  suppliant  Kings, 
Egbert  of  Wessex,  Erdulf  of  Northumbria,  Lope 
Duke  of  Biscay,  flocked  to  the  Imperial  Court. 
Clement  and  Mailros,  Irish  Scots,  came  with  the 
reputation  of  philosophers,  and  opened  schools   for 


112  THE   HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 

the  children  of  the  nobles.  Albinus,  an  Englishman, 
better  known  as  Alcuin,  the  disciple  of  Bede,  received 
from  Charles  the  Abbey  of  St.  Martin  at  Tours,  and 
became  first  rector  of  the  Studium,  which  grew  by 
and  by  into  the  University  of  Paris.  An  all-embrac- 
ing system  of  laws,  the  Capitularia,  dealt  with  every 
class  of  the  Emperor's  subjects.  It  fixed  the  revenues, 
and  insisted  on  the  duties  of  clerics  ;  required  an  oath 
of  fealty  at  their  hands  ;  and  commanded  their  appear- 
ance as  feudatories  at  the  Sovereign's  muster,  called 
Heerban.  It  mjght  even,  in  a  more  settled  age,  have 
fulfilled  the  task  which  so  perplexed  his  descendants, 
of  coping  with  the  Roman,  Ripuarian,  Lombard, 
Bavarian,  Salic,  and  Canon  Laws,  under  which  his 
subjects  were  liable  to  every  kind  of  conflicting 
obligation  and  justice  bowed  to  the  sword  of  the 
stronger. 

But  active  and  incessant  as  might  be  Charlemagne's 
efforts  to  create  order  in  a  chaotic  world,  his  enact- 
ments fail  in  the  large  wisdom,  they  never  display 
that  mastery  of  principles,  which  the  ancient  legisla- 
tion of  Rome  bequeathed  for  later  times  to  apply  or 
interpret.  His  advisers,  who  were  Churchmen,  gave 
to  their  own  Canons  an  exorbitant  place  in  his  collec- 
tion. But  neither  they  with  their  tradition,  nor  the 
Emperor  with  his  genius,  could  arrest  on  the  down- 
ward slope  a  society  which  was  too  little  versed  in 
things  of  the  mind  to  found  a  genuine  civilisation,  too 
far  removed  from  the  spirit  of  Christian  freedom  and 
equality  not  to  have  transformed  it  into  a  real  and 
scarcely  disguised  system  of  caste,  where  industry 
ministered  to  pride,  war   was  the    only   honourable 


THE   NORTHMEN   ARRIVE  II3 

profession,  and  not   even    monastic    solitudes    could 
follow  after  peace  or  ensue  it. 

On  Charles's  death,  an  Empire  which  had  no 
inherent  principle  of  life  or  unity,  fell  to  pieces.  The 
century  and  a  half  succeeding  were  one  long  inter- 
regnum ;  the  Emperors  move  by  like  figures  in  a 
pageant ;  the  sole  reality  was  a  feudalism  which  held 
its  chief  a  prisoner,  or  which  dethroned  and  murdered 
him,  while  fresh  barbarian  races  came,  saw,  and  con- 
quered, to  fall  in  their  turn  under  the  Church's 
influence.  In  8io,  the  victorious  but  fatigued 
Charlemagne  was  told  that  a  fleet  of  Northmen  had 
touched  the  coast  of  Friesland.  With  his  own  eyes 
he  saw  their  light  barks  on  the  Ocean  in  a  city  of 
Narbonnese  Gaul.  "They  are  not  merchants,  but 
pirates!"  he  exclaimed  to  those  around  him.  "I  weep 
over  the  harm  they  will  do  to  my  sons  and  my 
people."  Godfried,  who  happened  then  to  be  leader 
of  the  Northmen,  had  allotted  to  himself  the  German 
Empire.  His  kinsfolk  were  more  ambitious  ;  they 
became  the  masters  of  East  and  West. 


VIII 


CHAOS   COME   AGAIN 


(814-867) 


Not  unlike  Augustus  in  his  length  of  reign,  exten- 
sive dominions,  and  combination  of  violence  and 
cruelty  with  a  charm  which  passed  for  good  nature, 
Charlemagne  resembled  him  also  in  the  irregularity 
of  his  lusts,  and  the  calamities  which  fell  upon  his 
immediate  descendants.  Pepin,  his  eldest  and 
favourite  son,  died  before  him.  With  the  consent  of 
clergy  and  nobles,  he  named  as  his  successor  Louis, 
Prince  of  Aquitaine,  whom  we  remember  by  his 
pretty  old  French  title  of  the  Debonnaire.  But,  as 
Michelet  rightly  observes,  we  should  rather  call  him 
Saint  Louis.  The  youth,  bred  up  among  priests,  had 
learned  piety,  justice,  tenderness,  from  their  teaching 
rather  than  their  example.  Alone  of  the  Emperor's 
sons  he  survived.  That  strong  woman,  Hermengard, 
the  Empress,  thought  to  govern  him ;  as  did  after- 
wards   his    young    second    wife,   Judith,   mother  of 

Charles,  surnamed  in  his  time  the  Bald.     Yet,  in  the 

114 


THE    FIRST  SAINT  LOViS  115 

beginning,  he  acted  on  his  own  ideal  principles  ;  he 
reformed  the  scandals  of  the  Court ;  he  forbade  his 
prelates  to  wear  spurs  and  ride  like  cavaliers  to 
battle  ;  he  sent  back  into  their  cloister  the  intriguing 
Adelhard  and  Wala,  royal  monks,  who  had  counselled 
Charles,  not  wisely,  in  his  old  age ;  and  he  dreamt 
even  of  restoring  the  Benedictine  Order  to  its  former 
greatness,  by  the  severe  rule  which  Benedict  of 
Aniane  drew  up.  In  his  youth  he  had  taken 
Barcelona  from  the  Saracens.  His  heart  yearned 
over  the  miseries  of  the  serfs  whom  he  tried  to  relieve. 
To  the  Saxons  he  gave  back  their  right  of  inheritance. 
He  would  not,  as  his  father  did  without  scruple, 
appoint  Bishops  on  his  own  authority ;  and  in  the 
Papal  election  he  declined  to  interfere.  Such  was 
the  man,  simple,  serious,  chaste  and  merciful,  whose 
virtues  ruined  the  Empire,  and  whose  multiplied 
humiliations  have  cast  a  shadow  upon  all,  whether 
Bishops  or  Princes,  that  brought  down  his  grey  hairs 
to  the  dust. 

He  began  his  unhappy  reign  in  814.  Two  years 
later,  Leo  HI.  passed  away.  His  end  was  not  peace. 
Soon  after  Charles's  death,  a  conspiracy  of  the  familiar 
Roman  type  had  broken  out  ;  the  conspirators  were 
seized,  a  large  company,  and  executed  under  the 
ancient  Imperial  law  of  treason.  Louis,  on  hearing  the 
tragic  event,  was  shocked.  His  milder  law  had  been 
disregarded,  himself  not  consulted.  Bernard,  his 
nephew,  the  young  King  of  Italy,  was  charged  to 
intervene  at  Rome.  He  did  so ;  Leo  sent  an  embassy 
which  apologized  to  the  French  Court.  But  rebellion  on 
one  side,  evictions  in  Campagna  on  the  other,  and  the 


li6    ■  -cMaos  com^  again 

need  of  fresh  reinforcements  from  Bernard,  testified 
that  discontent  was  rife.  Leo  died,  neither  loved  nor 
popular.  A  protege  of  Hadrian's,  noble,  and  of 
accommodating  temper,  was  chosen,  Stephen  IV. 
He  exacted  an  oath  to  the  Emperor  from  the 
Romans,  travelled  into  France,  crowned  Louis  at 
Rheims  with  a  consecrated  golden  circlet,  took  back 
the  exiles,  and  died  on  his  return,  in  817.  The  same 
day  Paschal  I.  succeeded  to  a  thorny  inheritance. 
He  was  destined  to  disgrace  and  the  hatred  of  his 
turbulent  people. 

Meanwhile,  the  long  threatened  storm  was  bearing 
down  on  Louis.  With  his  own  hand  he  crowned 
Lothair,  his  eldest  and  most  vigorous  son,  at  Aix,  in 
817.  It  was  the  signal  for  Italy  to  rise.  Bernard 
had  never  acquiesced  in  his  uncle's  succession  ;  he 
reckoned  now  on  the  Bishops  and  cities  of  the 
Peninsula  to  support  him  against  the  Transalpine 
barbarians.  But  the  enterprise  came  to  naught :  he 
was  captured,  saved  from  death  by  the  Emperor, 
blinded  by  Heimengard,  and  expired  soon  after. 
This  crime  weighed  heavy  upon  Louis.  Yet  he  put 
down  the  Slavs  and  Basques  who  had  revolted  ;  he 
invaded  Brittany  ;  he  beat  the  Danes,  gave  Hamburg 
its  first  Bishop,  St.  Anschar,  and  sent  another  to 
Sweden.  All  this  could  not  turn  his  mind  from  its 
remorseful  thoughts.  He  insisted,  like  another  but 
willing  Theodosius,  on  undergoing  a  public  penance  ; 
he  was  scourged  before  the  altar  ;  and  his  feudal  lords 
seized  the  occasion  to  revolt  from  an  Emperor  so 
feeble.  The  movement  was  headed  by  his  three 
sons,  who  shut  him  up  in  a  cloister.     Then  his  people 


CHARGES   AGAINST  PASCHAL   I. 


117 


at  Nimeguen  restored  Louis,  and  Lothair,  with  the 
leaders  of  the  revolt,  was  in  his  power.  Louis  forgave 
them  (830). 

Paschal,  it  is  said,  like  the  Bishops  of  Milan  and 
Cremona,  had  favoured  Bernard's  stroke  for  Italian 
independence.     In  823,  when  Lothair  was  in  Rome, 


CHURCH   OF  SANT'   AGNESE  OUTSIDE   ROME,   A.D.   625. 


he  crowned  the  young  Emperor,  whose  hand  the 
Popes  were  to  feel  more  than  they  liked  in  the  sequel. 
Obscure  causes  led  almost  immediately  to  the  blinding 
and  murder  of  two  high  Roman  officials — Theodore 
the  Primicerius  and  Leo  the  Nomenclator — an  act 
charged  upon  Paschal  by  his  enemies,  from  the  guilt 
of  which    he    purged    himself  by   oath   before   the 


Il8  CHAOS    COME    AGAIN  ' 

Imperial  Commissioners.  But  he  added  that  these 
traitors  deserved  to  die.  When  his  own  turn  came, 
in  February,  824,  the  people,  who  hated  him,  would 
not  suffer  the  Pope  to  be  interred  in  St.  Peter's. 

A  contested  election  followed.  Two  candidates 
were  proclaimed  ;  but,  thanks  to  Wala,  the  French 
monk  and  politician^  Eugenius  II.  won  the  day  ;  and 
Lothair  now  intervened  to  some  purpose.  He  issued 
his  famous  diploma  (824),  with  its  five  articles,  which 
guaranteed  all  persons  who  were  under  the  Emperor's 
protection  —  thus  defeating  the  sanguinary  law 
of  lese-rnajeste^  under  which  so  many  horrors  had 
been  perpetrated.  The  Romans  could  henceforth 
choose  to  be  tried  by  Lombard  or  Salic  law.  Again, 
their  magistrates,  though  not  appointed  by  the 
Emperor,  must  present  themselves  to  him  on  being 
nominated.  Two  Missi,  or  Residents,  one  Imperial, 
the  other  Papal,  always  at  Rome,  are  to  report  on  the 
administration  annually,  to  hear  plaints,  and  to  notify 
miscarriages  of  justice.  And  the  election  of  the  Pope 
is  to  be  in  the  hands,  not  only  of  the  clergy,  as 
decided  in  769,  but  of  the  laity  as  well  ;  the  elect, 
before  his  consecration,  will  take  an  oath  in  set  terms 
and  in  presence  of  the  Residents.  It  was  a  victory  for 
the  nobles,  otherwise  called  the  Roman  People.  Still 
more  did  this  Constitution,  as  acted  upon,  enhance 
the  suzerainty  (no  other  word  will  express  it)  which 
the  Emperor  was  now  to  exercise  over  the  Holy  See 
in  its  temporal  concerns.  When  the  next  Pontiff 
succeeded  in  827,  the  nobles  insisted  on  their  rights, 
and  chose  Gregory  IV. 
y\\.  was  an  age  of  impotent  kings,  national  dissen- 


THE   FIELD    OF  LIES  IIQ 

sions,  and  haughty,  but  far  from  enterprising  nobles, 
when  whatever  courage  or  learning  was  left  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  Church.  Louis  acts  like  a  monastic 
saint ;  his  kinsman,  Wala,  whom  he  had  exiled  from 
the  Court  to  his  cloister  and  imprisoned  in  the 
Castle  of  Chillon,  is  a  politician,  all-powerful  with 
Lothair  and  now  the  adviser  of  Gregory.  This 
Pope,  therefore,  followed  the  Italian  King  when  he 
rebelled  once  more  against  his  father.  Judith,  famous 
for  her  beauty,  but  more  than  suspected  of  infidelity 
to  her  husband,  was  always  bent  on  securing  to 
the  infant  Charles  that  Empire  which,  as  an  aged 
man,  he  obtained  during  a  few  troublous  years. 
His  step-brothers  reckoned  him  the  adulterous 
offspring  of  Bernard  the  Aquitanian ;  they  would 
share  among  themselves  the  dominions  of  Charle- 
magne ;  and,  in  833,  Pope  Gregory  entered  the 
Imperial  camp  at  Worms  as  a  mediator,  but  left  it 
only  when  Louis  had  been  betrayed.  Judith,  a  captive 
in  Lothair's  hands,  went  her  way  to  the  Castle  of 
Tortona ;  Charles,  too  young  for  vows,  was  imprisoned 
in  a  German  abbey.  This  tragic  intervention  of  the 
Pope  and  clergy  was  long  known  as  the  "  Field  of 
Lies,"  equal  in  disgrace  to  the  still  more  famous 
"  Day  of  Dupes."  Gregory  went  back  to  Rome,  and 
that  is  the  last  we  know  of  him. 

But  Louis,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Medard  at  Soissons, 
was  compelled  to  utter  a  confession  in  which  he  took 
on  himself  the  guilt  of  this  long  civil  war.  Stripped 
of  crown  and  armour,  clad  in  a  lugubrious  garment, 
he  acknowledged  his  sins,  and  submitted  his  conduct 
to  Ebbo,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  whom  he  had  raised 


I20  CHAOS   COME   AGAIN 

from  a  servile  estate,  and  to  Agobard  of  Lyons,  the 
apologist  of  his  sons,  the  accuser  of  his  wife.  This 
penance,  which  the  Bishops  inflicted  on  a  meek  if 
incapable  Prince,  called  forth  a  speedy  reaction,  . 
especially  among  the  Germans  and  the  lower  people. 
Lothair's  chief  partisans  died  ;  a  crowded  assembly 
at  Metz  annulled  the  Diet  of  Compiegne ;  and 
Agobard  was  deposed,  with  some  other  great  prelates. 
New  treaties  and  more  partitions  filled  the  remaining 
years  of  Louis  with  sorrow  ;  they  were  death-tokens 
upon  an  Empire  now  breaking  up  irrevocably.  In 
840  he  died  himself;  in  843  the  agreement  of  Verdun 
divided  France  from  Germany  for  ever. 

The  documents  which  attest  this  memorable  event 
were  drawn  up  in  both  languages.  Charles  signed  as 
King  of  the  French,  Louis  as  King  of  the  Germans. 
Lothair  was  Emperor,  holding  a  middle  and  transient 
domain  which  extended  from  the  Meuse  to  the 
Mediterranean ;  but  his  Imperial  dignity  seems  to 
have  depended  on  his  possession  of  Rome  and  Italy. 
All  three  were  weak  and  failing  powers.  Northmen 
laid  waste  their  maritime  cities,  burnt  their  abbeys, 
and  sailed  up  their  rivers,  with  a  gay  insolence  which 
sang  of  war  as  a  summer  pastime.  Saracens  or 
Moors,  above  all  the  Aglabites  from  Kairouan 
(Cyrene),  infested  the  seas,  attacked  Sardinia  ;  in  831 
they  laid  hands  on  Palermo  ;  Sicily  was  almost 
colonised  by  these  Africans.  Yet  in  840,  two  miser- 
able pretenders  to  the  Duchy  of  Beneventum  called 
them  in  as  allies,  and  the  Peninsula  lay  open  before 
them.  On  August  23,  846,  they  landed  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Tiber.     Ostia  was  abandoned  ;  the  children  of 


SARACENS   PLUNDER    ST.    PETERS  121 

Ishmael  came  up  to  Rome,  occupied  and  profaned 
St.  Peter's,  devastated  St.  Paul's,  and  went  off  with 
their  booty.  Some  indecisive  battles  appear  to  have 
taken  place,  and  the  story  ran  that  a  tempest,  over- 
taking these  miscreants  on  the  shores  of  Africa,  had 
buried  their  sacrilegious  spoils  beneath  the  waves. 

Though  Europe  lay  under  a  cloud  of  ignorance 
and  imbecility,  an  outrage  so  deplorable  stirred  the 
public  conscience  to  its  depths.  People  charged 
Lothair  the  Emperor  with  criminal  negligence  ;  the 
Pope,  they  said,  was  a  simoniac.  Sergius  II.,  elected 
in  844  without  consulting  the  Franks,  had  raised  his 
brother  Benedict  to  the  See  of  Albano  and  suffered 
him  to  buy  and  sell  in  the  courts  of  the  temple. 
Even  the  monasteries  were  spoiled  by  this  Mayor  of 
the  Palace,  who  contrived  to  get  into  his  hands  the 
civil  no  less  than  the  ecclesiastical  authority.  The 
shock  was  great  Lothair  ordained  a  reformation  of 
the  clergy ;  despatched  his  son  Louis  with  an  army 
against  the  Saracens  of  Beneventum  ;  and  levied  a 
collection  for  the  building  of  walls  and  towers  to 
defend  St.  Peter's.  A  fresh  Pontiff,  Leo  IV.,  carried 
out  this  project  in  the  still  surviving  Leonine  City. 
Beneventum  was  conquered  and  divided.  For  the 
next  twenty-five  years,  Louis  II.  is  paramount  in 
Italy  (850-875).  He  combats  the  Saracens  in  Cala- 
bria ;  attempts  Bari,  which  they  had  made  their  place 
of  arms  ;  interferes  between  the  Pope  and  his  own 
Missi  or  legates,  threatened  with  death  by  Leo  IV.  ; 
and  prepares  the  choice  of  a  Pontiff  less  unfavourable 
to  the  Franks  by  naming  as  Legate  Arsenius,  Bishop 
of  Orte,   whose   son   was   the   learned  but  unstable 


122  CHAOS   COME   AGAIN 

Cardinal  of  St.  Marcellus,  the  secretary  or  librarian 
Anastasius. 

This  young  man,  it  seemed  likely,  would  occupy  the 
Papal  Chair  as  an  Imperialist  when  Leo  passed  from 
it.  On  grounds  which  we  cannot  ascertain, — but  the 
Iron  Age  possessed  no  historians  and  has  left  only 
meagre  chronicles  and  a  few  scanty,  not  to  say,  partial 
documents, — he  had  been  excommunicated  and  was 
living  in  exile.  The  year  855  saw  a  new  election  ; 
Benedict  III.  became  Pope;  but  he  was  not  the 
French  candidate.  Anastasius  returns  with  the 
Emperor's  legates,  is  master  of  the  city  and  the 
Pontiff.  The  Roman  clergy  hold  out  ;  a  compromise, 
a  second  election,  the  degradation  of  Anastasius  to 
lay  or  monastic  rank  as  Abbot  of  St.  Mary  across  the 
Tiber,  carry  us  on  to  858,  when  Louis  could  appoint 
a  man  of  his  choice.  It  was  the  Deacon  Nicholas, 
who  shares  with  Leo  and  Gregory  in  the  Roman  line, 
and  not  without  reason,  the  epithet  of  Great. 

His  reign,  which  lasted  only  nine  years  (858-867), 
was  marked  for  remembrance  among  the  obscure 
Popes  of  this  period  by  three  momentous  and  critical 
transactions, — the  deposition  of  Photius,  intruded 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople  ;  the  attempted  but  un- 
successful divorce  of  Lothair  IL,  King  of  Lorraine, 
from  Theutberga ;  and  the  putting  down  of  quasi- 
independent  prelates,  who  aimed  at  something  like  a 
national  Church,  whether  in  Ravenna  or  in  Rhine- 
land,  but  whose  efforts  and  defeat  have  attained 
undying  celebrity  through  the  False  Decretals.  Each 
of  these  chapters  fulfils  the  condition  of  a  great  and 
tragic  history.      The  Greeks,  hitherto  on  strained  but 


NICHOLAS    THE    GREAT 


J  HE         ^   \ 

RSITY  j 


not  schismatical  terms  with  Rome,  now  stereotype  as 
differences  of  dogma  what  had  been  thus  far  regarded 
as  variations  in  discipHne.  Christendom  is  rent  in 
two  not  long  after  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne 
falls  to  pieces.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Popes  reser- 
ving to  themselves  the  matrimonial  causes  of  Kings, 
ascend  a  tribunal  from  which  they  depose  sovereigns 
and  give  away  sceptres.  By  a  simultaneous  stroke, 
the  Church,  instead  of  breaking  up,  as  Charles's 
monarchy  had  broken,  into  petty  and  opposed 
principalities,  is  centralized  in  the  West.  A  supreme 
Court  of  Appeal  is  set  up  in  the  sight  of  mankind,  its 
charter  the  Bible,  its  weapons  spiritual,  but  entailing 
penalties  in  this  world.  For  deposition,  interdict, 
excommunication  greater  or  less,  carry  in  their  train 
forfeiture  of  dignity,  goods,  or  life,  and  the  Holy  See 
can  reckon  on  sentiments  which  become  the  founda- 
tions of  order,  in  the  State  as  in  the  Church. 

Whenever,  as  now,  the  Pope  seemed  a  man  of 
genius  and  character,  his  great  office  made  him 
supreme  over  all  causes  ;  the  higher  the  ground  he 
took  the  more  implicitly  was  he  obeyed.  Though 
Nicholas  had  an  Emperor  at  his  doors,  he  upheld  the 
independence  of  the  Holy  See  in  language  not  to 
be  surpassed  by  Hildebrand.  He  began  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  who  was  vexing  in  his 
neighbourhood  certain  Papal  subjects.  Summoned 
to  Rome,  protected  by  Louis  H.,  and  disregarding 
the  mandate,  he  fell  under  excommunication  in  a 
Lateran  Synod  (the  Pope  in  Council),  which  went  on 
to  forbid  the  intermeddling  of  strangers  in  elections 
to  the  Chair  of  Peter.     At  last  the  Archbishop  came 


124  CHAOS    COME   AGAIN 

with  Imperial  legates, — but  too  late.  Nicholas,  during 
a  journey  northwards  acted  like  a  sovereign  in 
Ravenna.  Louis  gave  up  his  man ;  a  forced  but 
absolute  submission  was  the  consequence  ;  and  the 
city  of  the  Exarch  was  once  more  humbled  before 
Eternal  Rome. 

But  Nicholas  bore  on  his  shoulders  a  double 
burden,  under  which  it  may  be  said  that  he  sank, 
though  victorious.  The  King  of  Lorraine,  brother 
to  Louis,  had  repudiated  on  a  monstrous  charge  his 
innocent  wife  Theutberga.  And  at  Constantinople 
Caesar  Bardas,  after  a  similar  act,  was  living  in  open 
shame  with  his  son's  widow.  The  prelates  of  Rhine- 
land,  including  Treves  and  Cologne,  had  not  scrupled 
to  bless  Lothair's  wickedness  in  solemn  Synod  ;  his 
concubine  Waldrada  was  enjoying  the  honours  of 
^  Queen.  More  melancholy  still,  an  accomplished, 
eloquent,  and  not  unamiable  scholar,  the  layman 
Photius,  had  suffered  himself  to  be  caught  up  in  a 
scheme  of  revenge,  devised  against  the  lawful  Patri- 
arch by  Bardas  ;  in  six  days  he  had  been  carried 
through  all  the  degrees  of  the  priesthood,  and  was 
now  seated  upon  a  usurped  throne.  Ignatius,  the 
deprived  and  persecuted  Bishop — a  Saint  in  the 
eyes  of  his  own  generation — who  had  rebuked  the 
Caesar  and  brought  these  evils  on  his  head,  was  a 
prisoner  in  Mitylene.  And  Photius,  by  the  hands  of 
four  prelates,  sent  to  Nicholas  a  letter  which  did 
not  tell  the  truth,  and  which  sought  recognition  for 
himself  from  the  Apostolic  See. 

But  in  Rome  the  facts  were  suspected  ;  these 
Bishops  returned  with  a  cautious  answer  in  which 


PHOTIUS    THE   SCHOLAR  125 

the  Pope  demanded  a  free  Council,  the  unforced 
resignation  of  the  canonical  Patriarch,  and  the 
restitution  of  ancient  rights  over  Illyricum,  Epirus, 
and  Thessaly.  For  bringing  a  message  so  insolent, 
the  Emperor — that  is  to  say,  Bardas — threatened 
the  Roman  legates  with  violence  ;  and  they  yielded 
to  menaces  or  bribery.  A  Council  was  held  ;  the 
legates  suppressed  what  their  master  had  written  ; 
Ignatius,  tortured  or  under  fierce  compulsion,  was 
made  to  sign  (if  he  did  sign)  a  blank  paper, 
which  his  enemies  filled  up  with  a  confession  of  guilt 
and  a  formal  resignation.  The  judgment  of  this 
Court  assembly  Photius  then  despatched  to  the  Holy 
See,  with  a  letter  of  his  own  in  which  there  is  some 
beautiful  but  hollow  writing.  But  Nicholas  disowned 
his  legates,  refused  to  acknowledge  the  layman, 
and  called  on  the  other  Eastern  Bishops  to  execute 
his  decrees.  Early  next  year  (863)  Ignatius  found 
means  to  acquaint  him  with  what  had  really  taken 
place,  and  with  his  own  sufferings.  The  cup  was 
full,  it  was  running  over.  Sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation was  launched  against  Photius  and  Gregory  of 
Syracuse,  who  had  consecrated  him.  His  acts,  his 
ordinations,  were  pronounced  null  and  void.  Those 
who  would  not  recognise  the  true  Bishop  were 
threatened  with  the  woes  of  Judas  and  Canaan.  All 
this  Nicholas  put  forth  in  St.  Peter's  name,  and  from 
it  no  appeal  was  lawful. 

A  violent  interchange  of  threats  and  anathemas 
filled  the  ensuing  years.  Photius  kept  his  See, 
charmed  the  multitude,  convoked  a  Council  in  867, 
and   secured   nearly   a   thousand    signatures   to   the 


126 


CHAOS    COME  AGAIN 


manifesto  in  which  he  upbraided  Rome  with  apostasy 
from  primitive  faith  and  usage.     Bardas  had  come  to 


a  bad  end  ;  Michael  the  Drunkard  still  protected  the 
intruder.     But  scarcely  was   the   meeting   dissolved 


THE    GREEK   SCHISM  12/ 

when  a  revolution  in  the  palace  led  to  Michael's 
assassination,  and  his  murderer,  Basil  the  Macedonian, 
deposed  Photius,  who  had  formerly  crowned  him  as- 
co-regent,  and  now  perhaps  would  not  condone  his 
regicide.  Ignatius  was  restored,  and  began  a  fresh 
reign  of  ten  years. 

By  this  time  Nicholas  was  dead.  The  Eighth 
General  Council,  as  it  is  reckoned  in  the  Western 
Church,  was  celebrated  in  869  under  Hadrian  II. 
Though  Photius  had  been  degraded  in  a  tempest  of 
obloquy,  it  does  not  appear  that  any  one  proposed 
to  take  his  life.  A  student,  he  might  have  been 
happy  in  his  exile  could  he  have  carried  his 
books  with  him.  On  the  death  of  Ignatius,  he 
persuaded  Basil  to  receive  him  into  favour  once 
more  ;  and  in  879  he  mounted  the  shaking  throne 
of  Sancta  Sophia,  with  the  consent  of  that  fiery 
Pontiff,  John  VIII.  Again  expelled  by  Leo  the 
Philosopher,  tried  for  high  treason  and  acquitted, 
he  withdrew  into  solitude  and  ended  the  schism  of 
thirty  years  by  his  death, — perhaps  in  891.  To 
scholars  and  critics  he  has  left  in  his  Myriobiblion 
a  feast  of  learning,  which  testifies  to  his  insatiable 
and  omnivorous  appetite.  To  the  divided  Churches 
of  East  and  West  his  more  dangerous  legacy  has 
been  the  Eight  Articles  which,  on  grounds  too 
frivolous  for  a  smile,  too  trivial  for  refutation,  have 
set  Latins  and  Greeks  in  everlasting  schism.  Doubt- 
less, the  one  sufficient  article,  not  named  among 
these,  was  the  Papal  Supremacy  which  Constantinople 
never  would  admit,  except  when  the  enemy  was  at 
her  gates. 


128  CHAOS    COME   AGAIN 

Photius,  Hincmar  of  Rheims,  and  Nicholas  I.,  all 
three  contemporaries,  light  up  the  dull  anarchy  of 
their  age  by  learning,  force  of  character,  and  some 
of  those  qualities  which  entitle  men  to  rank  in 
universal  history.  Had  they  been  united,  France, 
Rome,  and  Constantinople  might  have  offered  a  far- 
shining  and  formidable  front  to  the  Mohammedan, 
who  was  exacting  tribute  from  Italians  and  Greeks  ; 
the  Norsemen  would  have  been  subdued  by  a 
civilised  world  at  peace  within  its  borders ;  and 
centuries  of  confusion  need  not  have  vexed  mankind. 

But  the  ambition  of  a  literary  and  not  over- 
scrupulous Byzantine  led  Photius  to  scorn  and 
reject  the  Roman  Church.  Nicholas  would  never 
consent  to  abandon  his  claims  on  the  ecclesiastical 
provinces  of  Bulgaria  and  Western  Greece.  Hinc- 
mar, who  ruled  the  French  King,  behaved  towards 
Pope  and  people,  towards  his  suffragans  and  Charles 
the  Bald  himself,  with  the  insolence  of  a  high-bred 
noble  who  held  the  crozier  in  his  left,  but  was  ready 
to  strike  with  the  sword  in  his  right.  Pretensions, 
real  or  fictitious,  were  bolstered  up  with  forgeries. 
None  of  the  scribes  could  be  trusted  not  to  interpo- 
late or  mishandle  official  letters  ;  laws  were  invented 
as  well  as  evaded  ;  violence  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
Yet  this  perpetual  turbulence  did  not  imply  strength 
of  head  or  of  arm.  Invading  Danes  or  Norsemen 
found  the  cities  defenceless,  the  country  open.  Islam, 
which  in  our  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  rose  to 
splendour,  and  could  boast  of  its  art,  science,  litera- 
ture, philosophy,  and  chivalrous  manners,  had  lost  in 
vigour  what  it  gained  in  luxurious  refinement.     But 


THE    TURKS  1 29 

it  was  yet  able  to  put  armies  of  Christians  to  flight. 
Like  a  crimson  cloud  it  hung  over  Bosporus  and 
Tiber  simultaneously.  Nothing  save  its  internal  divi- 
sions, the  weakness  of  the  Caliphate,  and  the  sudden 
ascent  of  the  Turks  to  greatness,  while  these  had 
their  eyes  turned  in  the  direction  of  India  rather  than 
Europe,  prevented  the  conquest  of  Christendom  in 
the  years  before  us. 


10 


IX 


FEUDAL   HIERARCHY — FALSE   DECRETALS 


(847-882) 


It  has  been  observed  that  the  French  Kings  by 

their    matrimonial     disorders     gave    the    Popes    an 

authority  in   the  GalHcan    Church  and  realm  which 

might   otherwise   have   been    difficult    to    maintain. 

With  them   this  was  the  standing  quarrel,  as   with 

German  princes   the   investiture   and    feudalising   of 

clerics.      Lothair,   who    had    inherited    the    middle 

kingdom  of  Lorraine  from  his  father  and  namesake, 

married    Theutberga,    daughter   of    Boso,    Duke   of 

Burgundy.     But  there  was  an  Anne  Boleyn,  named 

W-aldrada,  whom  he  desired  to  raise  to  the  throne. 

/Horrible  and  false   accusations   were   made   against 

/Theutberga  ;  she  was  cleared  by  the  ordeal  of  boiling 

tf  water  to  which  her  champion  submitted.     Neverthe- 

iless,  driven  wild  by  persecution,  the   unhappy  lady 

Acknowledged    crimes    that   she    had    never    fallen 

into  ;    and    in  three  synods  at   Aix-la-Chapelle,  the 

cowardly   Bishops,   including   Treves,    Cologne,   and 

130 


LOTH  AIR    OF  LORRAINE  I3I 

Metz,  annulled    the   marriage    and    proclaimed    the 
concubine  their  lawful  Queen. 

Hincmar  of  Rheims,  a  learned  and  masterful  prelate, 
was  disposed  to  take  advantage  of  Lothair,  whose 
dominions  Charles  the  Bald  coveted,  as  in  the  sequel 
he  annexed  them.  The  Archbishop  had  been  watch- 
ing this  bad  business.  He  drew  to  it  the  attention  of 
Pope  Nicholas,  who,  in  a  reply  addressed  to  him, 
quashed  the  proceedings  at  Aix,  ratified  the  marriage 
with  Theutberga,  rebuked  the  King  in  scathing  terms, 
and  deposed  Glinther  of  Cologne  as  well  as  Theotgand 
of  Treves,  the  leading  sycophants.  These  Bishops,  after 
corrupting  his  legate,  had  been  foolhardy  enough  to 
appear  in  Rome  before  the  Pope.  They  even  brought 
down  on  him  Louis  II.,  whose  mixed  and  lawless 
soldiery  entered  the  city,  scattered  a  procession  of 
clergy  and  people,  and  threatened  the  Pontiff  himself 
(863).  Nicholas  crossed  the  Tiber  from  the  Aventine 
in  a  boat,  and  spent  two  days  and  nights  at  St.  Peter's 
shrine.  The  Emperor  fell  ill.  There  was  always 
something  fatal  in  the  Roman  air  to  these  Northern 
princes.  Terrified  and  ashamed  he  made  peace  by 
abandoning  the  two  Bishops,  who  fled  home  in 
disgrace,  but  pretended  to  excommunicate  the  Pope, 
and  would  not  resign.  Then  Lothair  deserted 
Glinther,  professed  repentance,  and  would  come  as  a 
pilgrim  ad  liniina.  The  Pope  scorned  his  pilgrimage. 
He  ordered  him  to  take  back  his  wife.  He  sent 
Arsenius,  who  had  long  administered  the  Roman 
Chancery — an  able  but  covetous  man — to  keep  the 
peace  between  these  Carlovingian  phantoms,  to 
restore  Rothrad,  Bishop  of  Soissons,  over  the  head 


132  FEUDAL   HIERARCHY 

of  Hincmar,  who  had  deprived  him,  and  to  see  Theut- 
berga  crowned.  His  victory  was  complete  ;  historians 
agree  that  it  was  well  merited. 

Not  that  Lothair  yielded  once  and  for  all.  He 
could  not  give  up  Waldrada.  But  judgment  was 
awaiting  him  at  Rome  when  he  should  finally  appear 
in  his  pilgrim's  garb  under  Hadrian  \\.  Meanwhile, 
as  the  Chronicler  says,  Nicholas  "  tamed  kings  and 
tyrants,  and  ruled  the  world  like  a  sovereign."  When 
he  dealt  so  inexorably  with  the  Archbishops  of  Treves 
and  Cologne,  putting  them  out  of  place  by  his  simple 
decree — not  remitting  them  to  the  sentence  of  their 
brother  Bishops — he  was  acting  a  part  which,  even 
more  than  his  language  to  the  miserable  Prince  of 
Lorraine,  implied  oecumenical  power  from  which  none 
were  exempt.  We  have  come  to  the  False  Decretals. 
Vlt  is  a  singular  story  of  fraud  and  Nemesis. 
Bishops  who  had  been  transformed  into  Barons,  and 
had  themselves  divided  the  Empire  at  Verdun ;  who  by 
the  Capitularia  of  Epernay  shared  the  civil  jurisdiction 
equally  with  Counts  ;  who  elected,  tried,  and  deposed 
Kings;  were  now  arrogating  an  independence  such  as 
the  Polish  nobility  claimed  and  exercised  down  to 
1772.  Charles  the  Bald  was  their  humble  client. 
Hincmar  writes  to  Louis  HI.,  "  I  and  my  colleagues 
with  the  rest  of  the  faithful  have  chosen  you  to 
govern  the  kingdom,  on  condition  that  you  keep  the 
laws."  Charles,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  anointed 
by  Wenilon,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  pleads  that  to  depose 
him  without  trial  by  the  Bishops,  who  are  "  thrones 
of  the  Divinity,"  would  be  a  sin.  Contrast  the 
language  of  Henry  VHI.  to  Cranmer  when   giving 


BISHOPS  ABOVE   KINGS  133 

him  leave  to  proceed  in  his  great  matter  of  the 
divorce  :  "  i\lbeit,  we  being  your  King  and  Sovereign, 
do  recognise  no  superior  on  earth  but  only  God,  and 
(are)  not  subject  to  the  laws  of  any  earthly  creature." 
The  real  King  was  at  Rheims,  where  Hincmar  raised 
troops  against  the  Normans,  and  held  Parliaments 
attended  by  the  spiritual  and  temporal  lords.  Except 
where  a  Bishop  controlled  the  city,  little  or  no  order 
was  observed.  Even  the  Abbot,  says  Chateaubriand, 
was  merely  the  old  Roman  patrician,  with  his 
vassals,  farmers,  villas,  towns,  and  territories,  and  an 
enormous  income.  Louis  le  Debonnaire  had  raised 
plebeians  to  sacred  heights,  but  the  affront  was  bitterly 
resented  ;  an  aristocracy  of  birth  did  in  fact  rule  in 
Church  and  State. 

These  overweening  prelates,  rich  and  often  dissolute, 
ambitious,  hard,  quarrelsome,  could  not  brook  the 
judgment  of  Metropolitans  who,  no  better  than 
they  in  morals  and  not  more  than  their  equals 
in  blood,  were  ready  to  depose  their  suffragans,  to 
sequestrate  properties,  to  intrude  favourites  in  the 
episcopal  seats.  From  this  peril  deliverance  must 
be  found,  and  obviously  appeal  to  a  supreme  yet 
distant  Court  was  the  way  of  escape.  Rome  might 
curb  the  Metropolitans ;  and  a  strict  or  almost 
impossible  form  of  procedure,  sanctioned  under 
the  Apostolic  name,  derived  from  primitive  ages, 
would  shield  the  Bishops  when  accused  by  their 
subjects  of  rapine  or  violence.  To  manipulate  ancient 
writings,  to  edit  history  in  one's  own  favour,  did  not 
appear  criminal  if  the  end  in  view  were  otherwise 
just  and  good.     It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the 


134  FEUDAL    HIERARCHY 

famous  Charter  of  Clovis,  renewed  by  Dagobert, 
which  bestowed  on  the  Church  of  Rheims  possessions 
in  Champagne,  Austrasia,  Burgundy,  Auvergne, 
Touraine,  Poitou,  and  Marseilles,  cannot  have  been 
genuine.  The  larger  Donation  of  Pepin  exhibited  to 
Charlemagne  by  Hadrian  I.  is  open  to  serious  doubts. 
We  might  continue  the  list.  Now,  at  the  Synod  of 
Quercy  (857),  a  whole  volume  is  suddenly  produced 
which,  under  the  venerated  name  of  Isidore,  Canonist 
and  Bishop  of  Seville,  claims  a  place  in  the  Church's 
legislation,  and  while  defending  the  hierarchy  against 
every  attack  from  below,  leaves  it  in  the  Pope's 
unquestioned  and  unlimited  jurisdiction. 

It  is  what  Milman  calls  it,  "  an  elaborate  and  most 
audacious  fraud."  Dionysius  had  collected  the  Pope's 
Decretals,  which  began,  as  we  have  seen,  with  Siricius 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Tarragona  (385).  Sixty  new 
epistles,  from  Clement  to  Melchiades,  and  the 
Donation  of  Constantine,  now  are  published  as 
authentic  in  addition.  The  old  Isidorian  collection 
included  the  Councils  from  Silvester  onwards ; 
thirty-five  false  decrees,  and  the  acts  of  spurious 
synods,  were  introduced  by  the  unknown  forger. 
Who  was  he?  Experts  and  critics  are  divided  on 
the  question. 

Not  a  Roman,  certainly.  Perhaps  we  should  dis- 
tinguish a  shorter  and  a  longer  form  of  the  fiction, 
which  cannot  have  been  devised  in  a  day.  The 
Church  of  Mayence,  Otgar  its  Archbishop  who  died 
in  847,  and  his  Deacon  Benedictus  Levita,  have 
been  singled  out  as  the  place,  the  patron,  the  instru- 
ment by  earlier  writers ;  their    connection  with  the 


CONTENTS    OF  FALSE   DECRETALS  135 

imposture  seems  undeniable.  When  many  of  the 
higher  clergy  stood  between  Louis  le  Debonnaire 
and  his  rebel  sons,  it  is  thought  that  Ebbo,  the  con- 
federate of  these,  and  Otgar,  might  have  invented 
Decretals  which  would  shield  them  from  the 
Emperor's  vengeance  by  cutting  the  ground  from 
under  his  jurisdiction  and  that  of  his  Metropolitans. 
On  the  other  hand,  West-Frankish  or  Neustrian 
elements  are  discerned  in  them  ;  and  Hincmar  began 
by  accepting  the  collection  as  genuine.  Spanish  it 
was  not,  nor  Roman,  nor  yet  Italian.  And  with  its 
manufacture  the  Popes  had  nothing  whatever  to  do. 

The  compiler's  aim  was,  first,  to  set  up  an  entire 
spiritual  immunity ;  no  secular  power  should  call 
a  Council  or  condemn  a  Bishop  without  the  Pope's 
consent.  Lay  courts  were  not  to  adjudicate  upon 
ecclesiastical  causes ;  nor  might  laymen  appear  as 
accusers  or  witnesses  against  the  clergy.  But  from 
secular  tribunals  to  spiritual  there  was  always  the 
right  of  appeal.  No  Bishop  was  to  be  tried  by  the 
Metropolitan  alone.  He  must  be  cited  before  a 
Provincial  Synod,  summoned  at  the  instance  of  the 
Apostolic  See.  When  thus  on  trial,  the  only 
witnesses  allowable  against  him  are  his  peers,  of 
whom  seventy-two  are  the  lowest  number  whose 
testimony  can  be  received.  From  this  office  the 
law  excludes  not  only  laymen  but  priests ;  and 
the  culprit  is  free  to  appeal  to  Rome,  enjoying 
meanwhile,  though  deprived  by  conciliar  sentence, 
his  property  and  privileges.  Between  the  Pope  as 
Supreme  appellant  Judge,  and  the  Bishops  as  his 
"  men "  in  a  strict  feudal   signification,  the  ancient 


136  FEUDAL   HIERARCHY 

rights  of  synods,  Metropolitans,  clergy,  and  laity 
were,  by  this  reading  of  Church  history,  swept  into 
oblivion. 

By  those  who  would  apologize  for  Benedict  the 
Levite  (if  such  was  the  forger's  name),  it  has  been 
pointed  out  that  he  did  not  ascribe  to  the  Holy 
See  rights  which  were  without  example.  Of  the 
Decretals  a  considerable  number  are  authentic, 
though  antedated  ;  others  embody  the  contents  of 
lost  documents.  Julius  I.  (342)  had  protested 
against  holding  Councils  where  the  Pope  was  not 
invited ;  he  called  it  an  unheard-of  thing.  To 
this  Pontiff  the  greatest  of  Eastern  Saints  and 
Patriarchs,  Athanasius,  had  appealed  from  local 
synods.  Chrysostom  had  been  protected  by  Pope 
Innocent ;  and  at  Chalcedon  Dioscorus  was  deposed 
on  the  ground  that  he  convoked  and  held  an  assembly 
of  Bishops  against  the  Papal  ordinance.  St.  Leo  had 
deprived  the  Metropolitan  of  Aries,  and  rearranged 
his  province.  With  Milman  these  apologists  might 
observe  that  "  the  new  code  was  enshrined  in  a  frame- 
work of  deeply  religious  thought  and  language  "  ;  that 
"  the  whole  is  composed  with  an  air  of  profound  piety 
and  reverence ;  a  specious  purity,  and  occasional 
beauty,  in  the  moral  and  religious  tone " ;  and  that 
"  there  are  many  axioms  of  seemingly  sincere  and 
vital  religion."  In  this  key  wrote  the  pious  Mohler, 
who  bids  us  make  allowance  for  a  child-like  age, 
not  precise  or  literal,  which  did  no  more  than 
magnify  an  idea  of  the  Papacy  that  could  still  be 
derived,  though  these  false  documents  were  not 
extant,  from  what  is  legible  in  Fathers  and  Councils 


THEIR   SOURCES   AND   DETECTION  1 3/ 

But  a  forgery  they  were  ;  and  Hincmar,  who  relied 
upon  their  authority  in  his  Synod  of  Rheims,  could 
not  demur  to  it, — though  he  roundly  called  it  a  trap 
for  Bishops, — when  Nicholas  turned  it  against  him, 
received  the  appeal  of  his  suffragan,  Rothrad,  and 
restored  him  as  above  described.  Could,  then,  the 
Lateran  Chancery  bear  witness  to  this  grand  array  of 
Apostolic  letters  and  legislation?  That  has  never 
been  pretended.  The  insignificance  of  the  Papal 
archives  we  learn  beyond  dispute  from  Gregory  the 
Great.  What  were  the  sources  to  which  False  Isidore 
betook  himself?  It  is  conjectured  that  the  work 
has  been  pieced  out  in  mosaic  fashion  from  Rufinus, 
Cassiodorus,  the  West  Gothic  Breviary  of  Alaric,  the 
Liber  Pontificalis^  and  other  materials,  wrought  up  into 
a  definite  pattern.  Yet  Nicholas  and  those  who  came 
after  him  cited  the  spurious  Decretals  no  less  freely 
than  the  genuine.  They  made  their  way  into  the 
official  collections;  they  became  a  part  of  Gratian's 
Decretunty  and  were  embodied  in  the  Canon  Law 
under  Gregory  IX.  At  the  Renaissance,  Nicholas 
of  Cusa  suspected  them  ;  the  centuriators  of  Magde- 
burg, De  Moulin,  and  Blondel  convicted  them  of 
falsehood.  They  are  now  universally  given  up.  But 
with  the  Donation  of  Constantine  they  formed  a 
juridical  romance  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  took  the 
place  of  law  and  history. 

Hadrian  II.,  who  came  after  Nicholas  (867-872), 
was  a  man  of  venerable  age,  austere  morals,  and  the 
highest  Papal  doctrine.  Before  taking  orders,  he  had 
been  married.  His  wife  was  living,  probably  in  a 
convent ;  his  daughter  seemed  now,  though  not  in 


13^  FEUDAL    HIERARCHY 

her  first  youth,  a  tempting  match  to  the  Romans,  who 
were  beginning  to  court  the  alHance  of  the  Lateran. 
For  there  was  always  a  strong  Church  interest,  and 
these  elections  betray  signs  of  clanship  among  the 
chosen.  Arsenius,  the  greedy  legate  and  Home 
Secretary,  had  two  sons  ;  one,  Anastasius,  whom  we 
have  known  as  a  defeated  candidate  for  the  tiara, 
and  the  other  Eleutherius,  not  in  holy  orders.  The 
lady  in  question  was  betrothed  to  some  one  else 
when  Eleutherius,  in  the  violent  Roman  fashion, 
carried  her  off  with  her  mother  and  compelled  her 
to  marry  him.  Hereupon,  Arsenius  fled  with  all 
his  treasure  to  the  Emperor  Louis.  Hadrian 
demanded  back  his  wife  and  daughter;  Eleutherius 
murdered  them  both.  He  was  caught  and  executed; 
his  rapacious  father  died  suddenly.  Anastasius  fell 
under  Hadrian's  wrath,  but  perhaps  could  vindicate 
his  innocence,  and  died  in  power. 

Soon  after  these  tragedies,  Lothair  H.  came  to 
Rome  as  a  pilgrim.  He  was  ill  received.  But  at 
length  Hadrian  consented  to  his  reconciliation,  and 
under  the  most  fearful  warnings,  administered  com- 
munion to  him  and  his  attendants.  They  took  the 
pledges  required.  Within  a  month  the  perjured  King 
died  at  Piacenza  of  the  plague ;  the  others,  it  is  said, 
did  not  outlive  that  year.  Charles  the  Bald  seized 
Lorraine  which,  by  all  rights,  belonged  to  the 
Emperor  Louis  ;  and  Hadrian,  in  language  as 
haughty  as  Nicholas  had  ever  used,  maintained  the 
Frankish-Italian  claims.  He  threatened  the  nobles 
and  bishops  of  France  and  Rhineland  ;  nor  shrank 
from  holding  the  sword  of  interdict  (a  word  hitherto 


THE    TWO   HI NC MARS  139 

not  pronounced  on  kingdoms)  over  Charles's  head. 
There  was  one  man  who  could  have  secured  the 
triumph  of  Hadrian  and  Louis — the  Archbishop 
Hincmar.  But  Hincmar  came  boldly  forward  with  a 
Gallican  demand  that  the  Pope  should  not  meddle 
in  State  affairs.  He  refused  to  leave  Charles's  Court ; 
nor,  he  said,  should  the  Franks  of  Austrasia  be  slaves, 
encumbered  with  an  absentee  King  unable  to  defend 
them  from  the  Pagans.  Charles  and  Louis  the 
German  shared  the  spoil  of  Lorraine  between  them. 
Louis  the  Italian  had  none  of  it. 

By  way  of  retaliation,  the  Pope  supported  against 
Charles  his  youngest  son  Carloman,  who  had  been 
rnonk,  abbot,  highway  robber,  and  in  open  warfare 
with  him,  but  who  appealed  to  Rome  from  his 
deserved  chastisement.  The  Bishops,  in  spite  of 
Hadrian,  proceeded  to  degrade  him.  Hincmar  of 
Laon,  whom  his  uncle  at  Rheims  had  advanced, 
would  not  sign  the  document.  He,  too,  was  a  con- 
tumacious cleric.  The  great  man  at  Rheims  had 
many  quarrels  with  him  ;  so  had  the  King.  The 
climax  was  reached  when  young  Hincmar,  to  protect 
himself,  laid  under  interdict  his  own  diocese.  His 
uncle,  the  Metropolitan,  took  off  what  the  Ordinary 
had  laid  on  ;  the  Ordinary  quoted  False  Isidore ; 
defied  Hincmar  of  Rheims  and  three  provincial 
Councils ;  and  asserted  the  immediate  unqualified 
jurisdiction  of  the  Pope.  Hadrian  summoned  him 
to  Rome.  But  conceive  the  situation  of  the 
other  Hincmar.  He  now  fenced  with  the  False 
Decretals,  and  argued  that  the  Holy  See  was  used 
to   pass    laws   only   by   conciliar   authority ;   that  it 


140  FEUDAL   HIERARCHY 

ought  to  respect  the  Canons  (as  Bossuet  spoke  long 
afterwards)  and  not  to  rely  upon  compilations  or 
forgeries.  In  a  vehement  letter  drawn  up  by  the 
Primate  of  Rheims,  Charles  was  made  to  affirm  that 
the  King  of  France  is  no  vicegerent  of  Bishops  but 
lord  over  his  own  land.  He  quoted  none  save  the 
genuine  Decretals.  Hadrian  lost  the  battle.  Carlo- 
man  was  tried,  condemned,  deprived  of  eyesight ;  his 
accomplice,  Hincmar  of  Laon,  suffered  the  same  fate. 
But  the  Decretals  of  Benedict  Levita  had  acquired 
fresh  force.  Meanwhile,  Rome  and  Italy  were 
plunging  into  a  mad  confusion  which  would  spread 
its  waves  over  the  next  two  hundred  years. 

John  VIII.,  a  Roman  (872-882),  has  been  described 
with  some  truth  as  a  lofty  spirit ;  but  he  was  born 
out  of  due  time.  The  Italian  Louis  II.  died  without 
children  (875).  By  right  of  birth,  Louis  the  German 
should  have  succeeded.  But  neither  the  Pope  nor 
his  subjects  desired  to  see  the  wild  Teutons  in  Rome. 
Then  and  always  what  they  preferred  was  a  French 
Emperor  as  the  head  of  Latin  civilisation.  "  France," 
says  Muratori,  "has  been  the  refuge  of  persecuted 
Popes."  The  German  language,  customs,  harshness, 
perhaps  honesty,  did  not  win  the  Southern  heart. 
Now,  accordingly,  John  held  out  a  sign  to  Charles 
the  Bald,  who  came  in  haste,  and  at  Christmas, 
seventy-five  years  after  Charlemagne,  was  crowned  in 
St.  Peter's.  "  We  have  elected  and  confirmed,  with 
the  consent  of  our  brothers  the  Bishops,  the  Ministers 
of  the  Roman  Church,  the  Senate  and  People  of 
Rome,  King  Charles  as  Emperor  of  the  West," — such 
was  the  Papal  intimation,  not  welcome  in  France,  as 


ADVENTURES    OF  JOHN    VIII,  I4I 

substituting  an  absolute  for  a  limited  monarchy  ;  nor 
to  the  Bavarian  Counts  and  Bishops,  who  held  that 
Louis  the  German  could  not  thus  be  put  on  one  side. 
It  mattered  little.  In  two  years  both  competitors 
were  gone.  Charles  the  Bald  expired  in  an  Alpine 
village.  Carloman  of  Bavaria  marched  down  into 
Italy.  His  ally  or  lieutenant,  Lambert  Duke  of 
Spoleto,  seized  the  Leonine  City ;  threw  the  Pope 
into  prison  ;  and  exacted  from  the  Romans  an  oath 
to  the  Teuton.  But  he  could  not  hold  this  dangerous 
Capital,  in  which  every  house  had  become  a  fortress. 
When  Lambert  retreated,  John  VIII.,  after  paying  a 
round  sum  to  the  Hagarenes  or  Saracens  to  keep 
them  away  from  St.  Peter's,  fled  to  Genoa,  to  Aries, 
and  to  Troyes. 

Every  town  in  Southern  Italy  at  this  time  was 
menaced  by  the  infidels,  or  had  entered  into  alliance 
with  them,  except  Bari  and  Tarentum,  now  held  by 
the  Greeks.  Naples,  under  its  Duke  or  Bishop, 
admitted  a  Moslem  garrison.  Gaeta  did  the  same. 
Marauding  bands  infested  Campania.  Pope  John,  in 
874,  had  fitted  out  a  fleet  on  the  Tiber  with  Greek 
sailors  ;  he  engaged  the  Saracens,  captured  eighteen 
of  their  vessels,  and  released  six  hundred  Christian 
slaves.  He  built  likewise  an  enclosure  round  St. 
Paul's ;  obtained  some  advantages  at  Amalfi  and 
Salerno  ;  but  could  not  break  the  alliance  between 
Naples  and  the  pirates  of  the  South. 

His  flight  to  Louis  the  Stammerer  did  not  mend 
matters.  The  Church  was  in  dire  need  of  a  strong 
secular  arm,  but  where  to  find  one?  Charles  the 
Great   was    perishing   in   his   imbecile    descendants. 


42 


FEUDAL   HIERARCHY 


Their  names,  which  historians  feel  bound  to  recite, 
had  better  be  forgotten.  In  884  the  mighty  house 
was  represented  in  France  by  an  infant,  Charles 
the  Simple;  across  the  Rhine  by  Charles  the  Fat; 
— these  nicknames  well  denote  the  contempt  into 
which  royalty  had  fallen.     At  Ravenna,  in  880,  the 


all 

sant'  apollinare,  RAVENNA.     {Exteriov.) 


German  was  accepted  as  Emperor  by  John  VIII., 
and  for  a  short  three  years  seemed  master  of  the 
Western  Empire.  Then  he  was  flung  aside.  The 
Pope  went  back  to  Rome,  after  launching  in  his 
ten  years'  reign  some  three  hundred  letters  of 
anathema,  and  attempting  to  depose  the  sovereign 
Archbishops  of   Milan,  Ravenna,  and    Naples.     He 


ECLIPSE    OF    THE    POPEDOM  143 

had  acknowledged  Photius  ;  confirmed  the  Council 
of  Constantinople ;  and  driven  from  the  Lateran 
Formosus,  Bishop  of  Porto,  with  his  adherents. 
But  enemies  were  never  wanting  to  John  VIII.  If 
we  may  believe  the  Annals  of  Fulda,  the  con- 
spirators belonged  to  his  own  household.  They 
endeavoured  to  poison  him  ;  this  not  succeeding,  one 
of  them  beat  out  his  brains  with  a  hammer.  Many 
Popes  had  suffered  martyrdom;  of  John  VIII.  it  is 
customary  to  say  that  he  was  the  first  assassinated 
(December  15,  882).  Unhappily  he  was  not  the  last. 
From  this  hour  we  shall  see  the  Papacy  going  down 
as  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  to  ascend 
by  miracle  from  its  deeps,  and  exercise  a  yet  wider 
dominion,  when  the  worst  had  been  endured. 


X 


THE    HOUSE   OF   THEOPHYLACT 


(882-964) 


Until  Otho  the  Great  appeared  in  Rome  (961) 
it  is  impossible  to  deal  with  the  Empire  as  any 
longer  a  reality  ;  and  the  Papal  succession  bears 
almost  as  ghostly  an  appearance.  "  Come  like 
shadows,  so  depart,"  is  the  summons  at  which  these 
spectres,  often  dabbled  in  blood,  pass  over  the 
stage  in  a  lugubrious  masque  of  anarchy.  Yet  the 
new  world  was  slowly  forming ;  to  the  tenth  or 
eleventh  century  we  must  ascribe  that  greatest  of 
all  transformations  by  which  the  Normans,  Danes, 
Prussians,  Hungarians,  and  Muscovites  bowed  their 
necks  under  the  Christian  yoke  ;  put  from  them  a 
Paganism  steeped  in  superstition  and  cruelty  ;  began 
their  studies  in  the  Gospel,  which  are  not  yet  ended  ; 
and  chose  Christ  instead  of  Mohammed.  This,  so 
far  as  we  can  learn,  was  an  apostolate  never  inter- 
rupted, though  Popes,  Bishops,  and  Kings  fell  into 
the  wildest  disorders.  As  a  spiritual  movement,  it 
seemed   to  go  on   of  itself,  or  in   the  words   which 

144 


TYRANTS    OF  SPOLETO  145 

we  Still  read  on  the  Arch  of  Constantine,  Instinctu 
Divinitatis  ;  Providence  was  its  only  guide. 

But  the  Carlovingians  had  disappeared.  In  France, 
Odo,  Count  of  Paris,  descended  from  an  obscure 
family  in  Anjou,  which  had  been  rallying  the  centre 
against  the  Normans,  opened  a  succession  of  thirty- 
three  Kings,  and  an  era  that  lasted  nine  hundred  years. 
Arnulf,  the  base-born  son  of  Carloman,  who  actually 
closed  the  Carlovingian  dynasty,  received  the  Empire 
in  896,  and  fled  from  Italy  fifteen  days  after,  never 
to  return.  The  Popes,  such  as  they  were,  had  now 
to  deal  with  an  Italian  power  at  Spoleto  ;  with 
another,  more  distant  and  less  hostile,  in  Friuli  ;  but 
above  all,  with  a  Roman  aristocracy,  the  most  un- 
bridled that  even  those  centuries  knew.  With  Guy 
of  Spoleto  master  in  Milan,  the  Lombard  kingdom 
had  risen  to  life  again.  It  was  a  line  of  Machia- 
vellian princes,  leagued  by  marriage  with  Tuscany 
or  Beneventum ;  not  shy  of  the  Saracen  alliance, 
much  less  of  the  Greek  ;  calmly  desecrating  the 
churches  in  Rome  ;  but  affecting,  when  it  suited 
them,  the  pious  ways  of  Charlemagne,  though  pre- 
pared to  dethrone  the  Pope  as  if  their  meanest  vassal. 
Into  such  hands  did  the  fall  of  the  Empire  commit 
the  venerable  Father  of  the  Faithful.  Almost  every 
year  beheld  that  ideal  defaced  and  trampled  on 
which,  in  Titus  Andronicus^  is  so  happily  bodied  forth 
as  the  Rome  of  devout  imaginations  : — 

*'  Suffer  not  dishonour  to  approach 
The  Imperial  seat,  to  virtue  consecrate, 
To  justice,   continence,  and  nobility  ; 
But  let  desert  in  pure  election  shine, 
And,  Romans,  fight  for  freedom  in  your  choice." 
1  I 


146  THE   HOUSE    OF    THEOPHVLACT 

Two  score  years  were  taken  up  with  the  lamentable 
tragedy  of  Formosus,  "  the  Pope  Beautiful,"  who  was 
persecuted  living  and  dead  ;  and  with  the  shameless 
records  of  Theodora  and  Marozia,  in  whose  feminine 
usurpation  of  the  Holy  See  Gibbon's  fancy  detected 
the  origin  of  Pope  Joan.  Then  comes  young 
Alberic,  Senator  and  perhaps  Saint,  a  lay  impro- 
priator of  the  Papacy,  under  whose  rule  the  Pontiffs 
are  chaplains,  and  who  might  have  founded  a  suc- 
cession in  St.  Peter's  Chair,  could  public  opinion 
have  looked  with  favour  on  a  married  clergy.  But 
his  foolish  son,  Octavian,  who  was  Prince  and  Pope 
at  sixteen,  outraged  every  rule  of  his  order,  and  when 
he  called  in  the  German  King  Otho,  he  was  pre- 
paring his  own  act  of  deposition.  The  lay  dynasty 
yielded,  though  sure  to  revolt  again,  before  Northern 
good  sense  and  simple  piety.  Such  is  the  igno- 
minious period  we  have  now  to  sketch  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  Intrigue,  unreason,  violence,  and  murder 
furnish  its  dominant  notes. 

Formosus,  if  we  may  believe  the  scanty  evidence, 
was  of  blameless  and  even  austere  character.  As 
Bishop  of  Porto,  his  diocese  was  little  more  than  a 
name  ;  but  he  had  been  consecrated,  and  Nicholas  I. 
sent  him  as  legate  to  the  Bulgarian  King.  Boris,  or 
Michael,  was  a  convert  to  Christianity  through  his 
wife  and  the  illustrious  missionary  Cyril,  who  evan- 
gelised the  Slavs.  He  desired  to  see  his  Church 
independent,  with  an  Archbishop  at  its  head.  He 
asked  of  the  Pope  to  appoint  Formosus,  much  loved 
of  the  Bulgarians.  Hadrian  H.  refused  on  what 
seems  to  us  the  idle  pretext — it  proved  a  spark  to 


FORMOSUS    AND   HIS   FORTUNES  \\J 

set  the  world  in  a  blaze — that  Formosus  was  a 
Bishop  already  and  could  not  be  translated.  This 
ancient  rule,  now  set  aside,  was  intended  to  curb  the 
ambition  of  prelates,  aspiring  to  rich  or  metropolitan 
Sees.  Formosus  came  back,  was  a  candidate  in  the 
election  of  872,  and  was  regarded  by  John  VI 1 1,  with 
an  evil  eye.  There  is  no  proof  that  he  favoured  the 
German  as  against  the  French  interest.  But  he 
belonged  to  an  opposition  which  included  Gregory 
the  Nomenclator  as  well  as  other  high  persons,  who 
fled  from  Rome  lest  a  worse  thing  should  happen  to 
them,  on  the  death  of  Louis  II.,  their  protector. 
John  summoned  them  to  no  purpose  ;  and  all,  in- 
cluding the  Bishop  of  Porto,  were  excommunicated 
in  a  synod  held  at  the  Pantheon  (875). 

But  when  Marinus  came  to  the  throne  in  882, 
he  restored  the  exiles,  and  among  them  Formosus, 
The  latter  had  sunk  into  lay  communion.  He 
was  under  an  oath  to  Pope  John  that  he  never 
would  reclaim  his  episcopal  dignity.  Marinus, 
however,  absolved  him  from  these  engagements,  as 
he  surely  could  according  to  Canon  Law.  In  891, 
this  much  enduring  prelate  himself  became  Pope, 
not  without  tumult  and  popular  acclamations. 
His  immediate  predecessor,  Stephen  V.,  had 
crowned  Guy  of  Spoleto  in  this  very  year  as 
Emperor,  but  under  constraint.  Formosus,  in 
like  extremity,  crowned  his  son  Lambert*  the 
next  year.  Meanwhile  he  implored  Arnulf  of 
Bavaria  in  private  letters  to  come  to  the  deliverance 
of  the  Holy  See.  Arnulf  did  come  in  894 ;  he  was 
also  crowned,  and  set  out  to  besiege  Lambert  and 


148  THE   HOUSE    OF   THEOPHYLACT 

his  mother  Agiltrude  in  their  castle  above  Spoleto. 
A  stroke  of  paralysis  ruined  all  his  plans.  He  was 
carried  in  a  litter  across  the  Alps ;  and  Formosus  died 
of  grief  and  vexation  in  896. 

His  death  gave  rise  to  the  most  astonishing  dis- 
orders. Boniface  VI.,  an  excommunicate,  and 
Stephen  VI,,  already  Bishop  of  Anagni,  consecrated 
by  Formosus,  passed  away  before  the  year  was  out. 
Stephen,  however,  in  his  brief  Pontificate,  served  as 
the  instrument  of  the  Italian  faction  and  of  Agiltrude, 
now  in  Rome,  whose  advisers  must  have  been  suffi- 
ciently at  their  ease  in  Canon  Law  to  deduce  a 
warrant  from  it  for  the  dreadful  scene  that  followed. 
On  Arnulf  had  been  poured  by  Formosus  unctio  ilia 
barbai'ica,  which  robbed  of  Empire  the  Spoletan 
family.  Though  dead,  he  must  be  made  to  expiate 
his  crime.  A  Council  was  held  in  St.  John  Lateran. 
Stephen  VI. — himself  a  translated  Bishop  on  whom 
Formosus  had  laid  hands — ascended  the  judgment 
seat ;  and  the  corpse  of  the  late  Pontiff,  dragged 
from  its  tomb  in  St.  Peter's,  was  solemnly  set  up  as 
prisoner  at  the  bar  before  the  assembled  Fathers. 
Charged  with  violation  of  the  Canons,  it  made  no 
reply  ;  neither  did  the  deacon,  assigned  as  counsel 
for  the  defence,  dare  to  open  his  lips.  Sentence 
of  guilty  was  pronounced  ;  the  Roman  ordinations  of 
Formosus  were  annulled  ;  his  body  was  stripped  of 
its  vestments,  down  to  the  hair  shirt  which  this  austere 
man  wore  next  to  his  skin.  The  corpse,  thrust  into 
a  nameless  tomb,  was  taken  thence  by  the  populace, 
who  sided  with  their  Italian  masters  against  the 
German  Arnulf,    and    flung   into   the   Tiber.     Some 


TRIAL    OF   THE   DEAD   POPE  149 

fishermen  l?rought  it  to  shore  in  their  net,  and  after 
many  wanderings  it  was  at  length  laid  to  rest  in  the 
atrium  from  which  it  had    been  torn. 

Within  no  long  time,  the  Lateran  Basilica,  polluted 
by  this  horrid  sacrilege,  fell  to  the  ground.  Friends 
or  partisans  of  Formosus,  when  Agiltrude  had  gone 
home,  lay  in  wait  for  Stephen  VI.,  caught  and 
stripped  him  of  his  garments,  and  strangled  him  in 
prison,  fifteen  years  after  John  VIII.  had  been 
murdered.  We  have  no  means  of  tracing  in  detail 
the  next  events.  Romanus  occupied  the  throne  four 
months,  Theodore  twenty  days.  Then  two  Popes 
were  elected — Sergius  III.  and  John  IX.  Young 
Lambert  declared  for  John  ;  his  rival  escaped  into 
Tuscany.  The  succession  to  the  priesthood  was  in 
danger  if  ordinations  could  be  annulled  on  grounds 
so  precarious ;  and  John  held  several  large  synods, 
attended  from  every  part  of  Italy,  in  which  Stephen's 
monstrous  acts  were  done  away.  It  was  felt  (and  no 
wonder)  that  some  public  security  should  be  taken 
against  disorderly  elections.  Henceforth  none  were 
to  be  valid  except  in  presence  of  the  Imperial  legates, 
as  had  been  ordained  by  Lothair  in  824.  Lambert, 
who  would  have  united  the  nation,  died  and  left 
his  kingdom  at  the  mercy  of  Berengar,  who  in  898 
occupied  Pavia.  Then  John  IX.  quitted  the  scene. 
He  was  followed  in  four  years  by  three  Pontiffs,  two 
of  whom,  Leo  V.  and  Christopher,  were  murdered 
in  their  prison  by  the  ever-memorable  Sergius  III. 
With  him  enters  the  house  of  Theophylact. 

Sergius,  like  Stephen,  had  received  the  consecrating 
oil  from  the  hands  of  Formosus  ;   at  whatever  date 


I50  THE   HOUSE    OF   THEOPHYLACT 

elected  by  his  faction  to  the  Papacy,  he  was  then 
Bishop  of  Cervetri  in  Etruria  ;  and  we  run  Httle  risk 
of  falsehood  in  describing  him  as  "  malignant,  fero- 
cious, and  unclean."  For  seven  years  he  had  eaten 
the  bread  of  exile  at  the  Tuscan  Court,  where 
Marquis  Adalbert  II.  the  Rich,  married  to  Lothair's 
illegitimate  daughter  Bertha,  reigned  as  the  ally  or 
the  enemy  of  Louis  of  Provence.  With  Tuscan 
soldiers  the  self-styled  Pontiff  returned  in  904  to 
Rome,  had  his  two  predecessors  murdered,  and  held 
out  for  another  seven  years.  In  Liutprand,  Bishop 
of  Cremona,  he^  has  found  an  inferior  and  possibly 
ill-natured  Tacitus.  But  fragments  remain  from  the 
lost  documents  of  this  dark  age,  that  bear  out  his 
allegations  touching  the  vices  and  servility  of 
Sergius  III. 

Over  the  Papal  treasury  presided  a  "  vestiarius," 
who  in  this  period  was  Theophylact,  Duke  and  Master 
of  the  Horse,  sole  Consul  and  Senator — in  modern 
language,  Prime  Minister,  as  well  as  Commander-in- 
chief  His  wife,  Theodora,  led  Roman  society,  and 
their  two  daughters,  Marozia  and  Theodora  the 
younger,  seem  to  have  inherited  the  haughty  licen- 
tious qualities  which  are  so  frequently  observable  in 
great  Italian  houses  early  and  late.  Theophylact 
held  a  charge  over  Ravenna,  where  his  imperious 
wife  attached  to  her  party  the  Archbishop,  afterwards 
John  X.  Thus  it  may  be  said  that  all  the  powers  of 
Central  Italy  were  combined,  first,  against  intruders 
from  the  North  like  Berengar  of  Friuli,  and  second 
against  that  section  among  the  Roman  clerics  who 
leaned  to  a  German  Emperor. 


,» 

^ 

||^f^^^^.4   ^'  ^^H 

1 

P  -  -^'^  -  ^^iy~.^|^p^^HI 

i^"""^"" 

152  THE   HOUSE    OF   THEOPHYLACT 

We  now  perceive  what  was  likely  to  happen 
under  such  a  Pontiff  as  the  miscreant  Sergius. 
Theodora  ruled  supreme.  "  She  won  the  Roman 
princedom,"  says  Liutprand  between  rage  and 
admiration,  "and  like  a  man  she  wore  it."  For- 
mosus  had  drawn  upon  him  the  wrath  of  Agiltrude ; 
he  did  not  escape  that  of  Theodora,  whose 
favourite  Sergius,  if  the  rule  against  translations  of 
bishops  were  enforced,  could  never  have  been  Pope. 
How  to  evade  this  law  was  the  question.  Casuistry 
of  a  scandalous  sort  had  been  invoked  by  Stephen  VI., 
and  was  adopted  by  Sergius  III.  If  when  he  conse- 
crated them  Formosus  were  not  lawful  Pontiff,  they 
had  never  been  true  bishops  ;  as  unfledged  eccle- 
siastics they  might  be  promoted  to  the  Supreme 
Chair.  This  reasoning  will  give  us  the  measure  of 
their  genius  and  their  probity.  Again  a  Council ; 
again  degradations,  anathemas,  re-ordinations,  the 
Hierarchy  thrown  into  confusion,  the  Apostolic  Suc- 
cession threatened.  Naples  and  Beneventum  resisted  ; 
Auxilius  and  Eugenius  Vulgarius  (the  latter  less 
constantly)  wrote  in  defence  of  Formosus.  If  Canon 
Law  fell  into  contradiction  or  absurdity,  what  would 
be  the  fate  of  those  high  prelates  who  governed  the 
West  ?  No  more  shameful,  no  more  perilous  moment 
had  occurred  in  the  Latin  Church,  where  heresies, 
seldom  or  never  of  an  abstract  kind,  concerned  them- 
selves at  once  with  action  and  led  straight  to  secular 
divisions. 

But  Sergius  held  his  ground.  Rumour  declared 
him  the  paramour  of  Marozia,  though  twice  her  age, 
and  the  father  of  John,  afterwards  Pope  John  XI. — a 


SARACENS   DEFEATED  153 

tale  which  Muratori  challenges  but  the  Papal  cata- 
logues accept.  On  his  death  in  911,  Anastasius  III. 
and  Lando  pass  over  the  scene.  If  they  belonged  to 
the  foreign  faction  their  speedy  removal  would  be 
explained.  It  is  certain  that  John  X.,  who  came 
next  and  lasted  fourteen  years  (914-928),  endured 
or  welcomed  the  patronage  of  this  quasi-royal  house. 
A  translated  Bishop  by  the  grace  of  Theodora,  he 
would  not  recognise  the  Formosan  ordinations  ;  the 
Invectiva  in  Roniain,  a  manifesto  from  Naples,  treats 
him  as  a  usurper  ;  but  in  any  case  John  X.  displayed 
remarkable  though  not  priestly  qualities.  The  Sara- 
cens, strong  on  the  Garigliano,  had  spoiled  and 
occupied  the  noble  Abbey  of  Farfa  in  the  Sabines. 
They  put  a  zone  of  fire  and  pillage  round  the 
Apostles'  tomb.  Pope  John  called  to  his  aid 
Berengar,  whom  he  crowned  Emperor  in  915,  and 
the  Imperial  vassals  of  Tuscany  and  Spoleto,  com- 
manded by  Alberic  Marquis  of  Camerino.  A  league 
was  formed  ;  the  Pope  marched  with  his  captains^ 
charged  at  their  head  (an  exploit  in  which  he  glories), 
and  himself  or  his  generals  beat  the  infidels  at 
Baccano  and  Trevi.  With  certain  Apostolic  lands 
he  bought  off  Naples  and  Gaeta  from  their  unholy 
alliance.  The  Greeks  joined  in  ;  a  fleet  was  con- 
tributed from  along  the  coast ;  battles  ensued  by  sea 
and  land  under  Theophylact,  Alberic,  the  Lombard 
princes.  In  two  months  the  last  of  the  Saracens  was 
killed  or  taken  (August,  916).  And  Alberic  received 
the  hand  of  Marozia. 

The   world    was   changing    again.     Berengar    had 
called  in  the  savage  Hungarians  to  help  him  in  his 


1 


154  THE   HOUSE    OF    THEOPHYLACT 

quarrels.  He  was  murdered  in  924  at  Verona. 
Landing  at  Pisa,  Hugh,  King  of  Provence,  accom- 
plished, dissolute,  but  full  of  respect  for  the  clergy, 
hastened  to  Pavia,  and  found  the  Archbishop  of 
Milan  and  the  Pope  himself  eager  for  his  ad- 
vancement to  the  Imperial  throne.  The  great 
Vestiarius  and  his  wife  lay  in  their,  gilded  tombs. 
Marozia  had  lost  her  husband ;  but  perhaps  the 
splendid  widow,  wealthy,  popular,  energetic,  and 
only  thirty-four,  was  more  powerful  than  in  his 
lifetime.  Hadrian's  gigantic  Mole,  a  miracle  of 
strength,  formerly  adorned  with  marble  statues, 
which  the  besieged  garrison  hurled  on  the  head 
of  Vitiges  and  his  soldiers,  was  now  the  Castle  of 
St.  Angelo  and  the  den  or  refuge  of  every  Roman 
tyrant.  This  enterprising  woman  seized  upon  it,  and 
from  the  Emperor's  tomb  offered  herself  with  her 
treasures  to  Guy,  Duke  of  Tuscany,  son  to  Adalbert 
the  Rich  and  half-brother  to  Hugh  of  Provence.  If 
John  X.  had  been  Theodora's  cavalier'  servente  we 
perceive  that  a  family  quarrel  was  at  hand,  its  prize 
Italy,  the  Popedom,  the  Empire.  To  such  base 
uses  may  great   things  come ! 

John  had  a  brother  named  Peter,  Count  of  Orte 
and  his  mainstay  in  the  contest,  a  very  unequal  one, 
which  he  attempted  with  Marozia.  But  she,  for- 
tissima  Tyndaridaruni^  an  unconquered  virago,  was 
a  match  for  both  of  them.  Rebellion,  at  a  sign  from 
her,  invaded  the  Lateran  ;  the  brothers  were  seized, 
Peter  slain  before  the  Pope's  face,  John  flung  into 
a  dungeon  and  smothered  (928).  Europe  and  the 
Papacy,  it  may  not  be  unfairly  observed,  could  have 


156  THE    HOUSE    OF    THEOPHYLACT 

better  spared  a  better  man.  The  chronicler  of 
Soracte  writes  in  his  doleful  Latin,  Subjugatus  est 
Romam  potestative  in  nianu  feminae.  It  is  ludicrous 
and  horrible,  as  the  times  themselves  were.  Marozia's 
son  was  probably  thought  too  young  for  the  tiara. 
His  mother  set  up  Leo  VI.  that  same  year,  Stephen 
VII.  the  next.  How  did  they  cease  to  be  Popes? 
We  are  not  informed.  But  in  March,  931,  Guy  of 
Tuscany  had  disappeared,"  and  the  alleged  offspring 
of  Marozia  and  Sergius  III.  was  John  XL  Rome 
acquiesced  or  was  happy  in  the  choice.  The  lay 
power  now  did  as  seemed  good  in  its  eyes  with  St. 
Peter's  Chair. 

Yet  at  such  a  moment  deliverance  came,  and  from 
an  unlooked-for  quarter.  Sultan  Hugh  at  Pavia, 
King  of  Italy  since  926,  had  wives  and  concubines ; 
but  his  last  ostensible  Queen  had  just  expired,  and 
Marozia  dreamed  of  an  Italian,  or,  with  her  son  to 
officiate  in  St.  Peter's,  an  Imperial  crown.  Her  vices 
knew  no  shame  ;  Messalina  proposed  to  King  Hugh  ; 
and  though  impediments  of  close  affinity  forebade 
the  banns,  he  accepted,  invented  some  disgraceful 
story  to  get  rid  of  the  relationship,  was  challenged 
by  Lambert  of  Tuscany  and  his  champion  beaten ; 
but  still  the  Provencal  advanced  towards  Rome  and 
matrimony.  His  cautious  bride  shut  the  city  gates. 
They  should  be  married  in  Hadrian's  tomb — a  fit 
place  for  such  a  bridal.  With  noise  and  splendour 
it  was  celebrated.  But  the  Romans  (let  it  be  said 
once  for  all)  detest  strangers  who  come  to  lord  it 
over  them.  A  youthful  son  of  the  lady  served  as 
page   in   these   festivities,   Alberic  of    the   house   of 


END    OF  MAROZIA  157 

Camerlno ;  it  is  probable  that  he  did  not  love  his 
new  step-father^  and  his  awkward  ministration  called 
forth  a  blow  from  the  King.  At  once  the  citizens 
broke  out.  Alberic  rallied  them  against  these  Bur- 
gundians,  of  old  their  bondslaves  ;  St.  Angelo  was 
besieged  ;  Hugh  of  Provence  escaped  with  difficulty  ; 
and  the  young  Patrician  held  his  mother,  the  Pope, 
and  the  city  captive. 

Marozia  now  vanishes;  John  XI.  died  within  four 
years,  not  by  violence ;  and  Alberic  was  willing  to 
marry  the  King's  daughter,  provided  Hugh  would 
give  up  his  claim  to  the  Roman  princedom,  which, 
after  repeated  failures,  he  did  in  946,  at  the  instance 
of  St.  Odo,  Abbot  of  Cluny.  The  voluptuous  Pro- 
vencal lost,  or  surrendered,  his  Italian  domains  ;  he 
could  never  grasp  the  sceptre  of  Charles  the  Great. 
His  son  Lothair,  dying  in  youth,  left  a  widow 
Adelaide,  heiress  to  all  his  rights,  whom  Berengar 
of  Ivrea  seized  and  imprisoned  in  a  castle  on  the 
Lago  di  Garda.  She  escaped  to  Reggio ;  and  Otho, 
King  of  Germany,  came  at  her  call  (950,  951). 

There  is  henceforth  during  twenty-two  years  a 
"  glorious  "  or  "  humble  "  Prince  and  Senator  of  all 
the  Romans.  Exarchate,  Pentapolis,  have  fallen 
away  or  been  absorbed  in  the  Lombard  Kingdom. 
The  Saracens  have  ceased  from  troubling  ;  but  bands 
of  Hungarians  infest  the  desolate  Campagna.  With 
Byzantium  Alberic  is  on  such  friendly  terms  that  he 
proposes  to  marry  a  Greek  Princess  or  offers  his 
sister  to  a  son  of  the  Emperor  Lecapenus.  The  only 
recorded  act  of  John  XI.  is  to  send  four  bishops,  in 
933,  with  powers  to  dispense  and  consecrate  another 


158  THE    HOUSE    OF    THEOPHYLACT 

son  of  the  Imperial  family,  Theophylact,  who  at  the 
age  of  thirteen  was  inducted  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople. An  enormous  and  shocking  derogation  from 
law ;  but  boy-bishops,  boy-abbots,  and  boy-popes, 
were  to  be  the  scandal  of  more  than  one  century. 
However,  what  these  interchanges  of  friendship 
betoken  is  that  the  Consul  of  Rome  had  turned 
from  North  to  East  again ;  he  would  not  suffer 
himself  to  be  entangled  in  the  affairs  of  Provengal, 
Lombard,  or  Teuton.  His  design  was  to  set  up  a 
royal  House  on  the  Palatine,  while  his  son  or  cousin, 
the  Pope,  ordained,  preached,  and  sang  his  solemn 
Hours  in  the  Lateran  which  Sergius  HI.  had  built 
up  again. 

For  his  own  part  Alberic  was  a  just  ruler,  deeply 
religious,  and  guided,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  counsels 
of  an  illustrious  monk  and  reformer,  Odo  of  Cluny. 
If  the  Popes  were  his  creation,  they  did  not  disgrace 
the  Papal  Chair.  No  evil  is  reported  of  Leo  VII., 
Stephen  IX.,  Marinus  II.,  or  Agapitus  II.,  although 
we  cannot  explain  by  what  series  of  accidents  four 
Pontiffs  reigned  in  twenty  years.  We  read  of 
monasteries  built  or  brought  to  stricter  observance — 
on  the  Aventine,  in  Via  Lata,  at  St.  Gregory,  St. 
Paul,  St.  Laurence,  St.  Agnes.  Farfa  became  a  large 
establishment ;  Subiaco  was  raised  from  its  ruins. 
The  contrast  between  Alberic's  piety  and  King 
Hugh's  lawless  dealing  with  bishops  and  bishoprics 
was  striking  indeed.  Simony  and  concubinage  laid 
waste  the  North  of  Italy.  Lambert  purchased  from 
Berengar  the  great  See  of  Milan,  which  became  a 
centre    of  relaxation,   with    its    dynasty   of  married 


ALbERIC   SENATOR  159 

bishops,  down  to  the  days  of  Gregory  VII.  Manasses, 
Archbishop  of  Aries,  was  a  pluralist  who  bought  or 
appropriated  Trent,  Verona,  Mantua.  Hugh's  own 
base-born  sons  were  bestowed  at  Piacenza,  or  thrust 
into  the  Sacred  College.  Abbey  lands,  nay,  the 
abbeys  themselves,  went  to  Court  favourites.  The 
rank  and  file  of  the  clergy  no  longer  observed  those 
Canons  which  forbade  them  to  marry  ;  the  prelates 
were  soldiers,  sycophants,  traitors  by  turns  to  Hugh 
and  Berengar,  keeping  their  wives  in  state,  alienating 
Church  property  to  their  children.  Actual  robbers, 
as  Waldo  at  Como,  held  the  Sees  of  Christendom. 
And  Manasses,  who  had  won  Trent  from  King 
Hugh,  opened  the  passes  of  the  Alps  to  his  enemy, 
the  German  Otho. 

In  comparison  with  such  unholy  men  of  God, 
Alberic  was  a  saint.  But  he  had  usurped  the 
Patrimony  of  the  Apostle,  and  retribution  lay  in  wait 
for  the  crimes  which  have  given  his  House  a  dreary 
fame  in  Roman  annals.  His  son  bore  the  name, 
almost  the  title,  of  Octavian.  Might  he  one  day  be 
Augustus?  The  lad  was  hardly  ten  years  of  age, 
when  Otho,  like  a  sudden  re-appearance  of  Charle- 
magne, glittered  on  the  Alpine  horizon,  swooped 
down  to  Canossa,  where  Queen  Adelaide  was  under- 
going a  siege  from  Berengar  of  Ivrea,  and  set  the 
garrison  free.  It  was  a  warning  of  change  to  all  Italy. 
Alberic  had  his  boy  tonsured ;  the  fatal  instance 
of  young  Theophylact  was  there  to  urge  him  on  ; 
gathering  the  Romans  in  St.  Peter's,  he  made  them 
swear  that,  on  the  death  of  Agapitus,  they  would 
choose   Octavian.       Perhaps    the   lay    nobles    did   so 


l60  THE    HOUSE    OF   THEOPHYLACT 

willingly ;  the  clerics,  held  down  for  fifty  years,  can- 
not have  ceased  to  whisper  Otho's  name.  Alberic 
was  in  the  prime  of  life,  but  the  Middle  Ages 
were  times  of  scant  vitality,  when  no  one  except 
hermits  in  the  wilderness  came  to  three  score  and 
ten.  At  forty  the  Patrician  was  dead  (954) ;  Agapitus 
followed  him  in  less  than  a  twelvemonth.  Octavian, 
now  John  XII.,  at  sixteen  was  Imperator,  Consul, 
Pontifex  Maximus.  In  his  scarlet  mantle  Elagabalus 
occupied  St.  Peter's  Chair. 

A  medieval  Elagabalus,  who  donned  his  armour 
against  the  Southern  Lombards  and  was  put  to  flight; 
who  hunted,  drank,  gambled,  and  converted  the 
Lateran  into  a  lupanar ;  who  sold  abbeys  and  bishop- 
rics, ordained  lads  for  money,  mutilated  prelates, 
and  mingled  jests  and  cruelty  with  his  wanton 
sacrileges.  Several  years  passed  before  the  monstrous 
career  of  an  ungovernable  youth  was  interrupted. 
Italian  affairs  had  thrown  up  froth  and  confusion  like 
the  sea.  Otho  ruled  in  Germany  ;  Berengar  of  Ivrea 
and  his  son  Adalbert  were  detested,  but  still  they  could 
deprive  the  Archbishop  of  Milan,  and  menace  Pope 
John.  We  do  not  know  the  particulars  of  an  obscure 
transaction  ;  yet  who  can  doubt  that  sooner  or  later 
the  German  King  would  have  taken  on  himself  to 
regulate  the  condition  of  Rome  and  Italy?  John  XII. 
perhaps  forestalled  his  indignant  subjects.  He  and 
the  deposed  Bishops,  with  many  Princes,  entreated 
the  royal  aid.  In  961  Otho  received  the  Iron  Crown 
at  Pavia.  Next  February  (962)  saw  him  in  St. 
Peter's  ;  "  by  his  valour,"  says  Otho  of  Freising,  "he 
had  translated  the  Roman  Empire    to  the  Eastern 


'•^      or  T 


/OHN   XII.    DEPOSED 


\l 


Franks."  They  were  to  hold  it,  under  many  vicis- 
situdes, for  eight  hundred  and  forty-four  years,  down 
to  1806.  Otho  was  the  first,  as  he  was  among  the 
greatest,  of  German  Kaisers. 

John  XII.  anointed  him,  and  the  Emperor  swore  to 
protect  the  Roman  Church,  give  back  her  possessions, 
and  make  no  change  in  her  government  without  the 
Pope's  leave.  The  people  and  their  Pontiff  then  took 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  him.  On  the  body  of  St. 
Peter  they  swore  to  abandon  all  connection  with 
Berengar  and  his  son.  When  Otho  retired,  the  mad 
young  man  entered  into  immediate  correspondence 
with  Adalbert,  who  fled  soon  after  to  the  Saracens, 
and  then  took  refuge  in  Rome.  Otho  left  the  siege 
of  Monte  Leone  where  Berengar  was  straitly  shut 
up,  marched  to  the  city,  and  was  told  that  Pope  and 
King,  despairing  of  support,  had  taken  to  the  open 
country.  A  Council  was  at  once  called.  The  charges 
at  which  we  have  hinted  were  brought  against  the 
absent  Pontiff.  Liutprand  of  Cremona,  in  the 
Emperor's  name  (Otho  could  not  speak  Latin)  warned 
the  Bishops  that  clear  proofs  must  be  forthcoming. 
John  was  summoned,  an  Imperial  safe-conduct  offered 
him.  The  youth  replied  in  a  crude  Latin  message  that 
provoked  shame  and  laughter  when  it  was  read  out, 
"  We  hear  that  you  mean  to  elect  a  new  Pope.  If  you 
do,  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God  I  excommunicate 
you,  and  forbid  you  to  ordain  or  say  Mass."  Instead 
of  coming  to  the  Council,  he  went  out  shooting  at 
Tivoli. 

What  should  be  done  according  to  the  Canons?  It 
was  a  perplexed  situation.     But  the   Emperor's  pre- 

12 


1 62  THE   HOUSE    OF   THEOPHYLACT 

lates  perplexed  it  more.  They  deposed  John  (Dec.  4, 
963),  and  elected  Leo,  who  was  not  in  orders,  but  who 
held  the  position  of  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Holy  See. 
Within  a  month  the  Romans  were  up  in  arms.  They 
fell  on  Otho's  diminished  troops,  barricaded  the 
bridge  of  St.  Angelo,  and  had  to  be  put  down  with 
immense  slaughter  by  the  Germans,  now  thoroughly 
exasperated.  The  Emperor,  compelled  to  resume  his 
blockade  of  Berengar,  marched  away  to  Montefeltro, 
leaving  his  Pope  behind  him.  Immediately,  there 
was  an  insurrection  of  women,  said  to  be  high  born, 
in  favour  of  their  Alberic's  son  and  heir.  Leo  con- 
trived to  get  off  in  time  ;  John  returned,  mutilated  the 
leaders  whom  he  could  catch  of  the  Imperial  party, 
and  in  a  Council  which  was  doubtless  popular  asserted 
his  rights.  This  took  place  in  February,  964.  In 
May,  while  pursuing  some  intrigue,  he  died  suddenly, 
by  the  judgment  of  Heaven  or  the  dagger  of  an  injured 
husband.  His  decease  cut  an  entangled  knot.  The 
Romans,  however,  disdaining  to  wait  for  Otho,  and 
not  recognising  Leo  VIII.,  elected  a  Pope  of  their 
own,  who  was  called  during  the  next  unhappy  days 
by  the  ironical  designation  of  Benedict  V. 


XI 


ROMAl^CE    OF   THE    OTHOS 


(964-1003) 


V 


Meanwhile,  Otho  had  taken  Berengar  and  Willa, 
his  wife,  at  Monte  Leone — a  couple  stained  with  every 
crime,  who  had  played  Macbeth  and  Lady  Macbeth 
to  the  Queen-widow  Adelaide,  by  this  time  married  to 
her  German  hero,  now  in  consequence  Italian  King  and 
Emperor.  When  these  miscreants  were  despatched 
over  the  Alps,  Otho  drove  straight  at  the  Romans, 
struck  them  helpless,  and  saw  their  Benedict  V.  in  his 
robes  crouching  on  the  ground  before  him, — a  spectacle 
which  drew  iron  tears  down  that  Pluto's  cheek. 
Degraded,  exiled  to  remote  Hamburg,  the  true  or 
false  Pope  is  seen  by  us  no  more.  Leo  VIII.  con- 
firmed anew  the  diploma  which,  in  some  uncertain 
shape,  John  XII.  had  granted.  This  "  Privilegium 
Othonis"  compels  the  Romans  to  swear  that  they 
will  never  elect  a  Pope  except  with  the  Emperor's 
consent,  and  the  candidate  is  himself  to  take  an  oath 

of    allegiance.      In    fact,    as    Liutprand    says,    they 

163 


164  ROMANCE    OF    THE    OTHOS 

surrendered  their  right  of  election  to  Otho  and  his 
successors.  But  had  they  not  done  as  much  during 
the  sixty  years  before?  The  House  of  Theophylact 
was  the  Great  Elector,  yet  with  this  difference,  that 
Theodora,  Marozia,  Alberic  were  flesh  of  their  flesh, 
bone  of  their  bone.  If  they  submitted  to  a  stranger 
they  did  so  unwillingly,  and  not  a  moment  longer 
than  they  could  help. 

When  the  Barons,  Counts,  or  whatever  they  styled 
themselves, — these  brigands  of  a  mixed  pedigree  now 
encamped  all  over  Rome, — wanted  a  pretext  to  rise, 
they  put  forward  the  banner  of  the  Republic,  and 
S.P.Q.R.  became  their  superb  device.  Against  Otho 
in  person  they  dared  not  rebel  ;  when  Leo  VIII.  died 
in  965 — it  seemed  impossible  that  any  Pope  should 
reign  long — they  humbly  begged  a  Pontiff  from  the 
German  soldier.  He  sent  them  a  kinsman  of  their 
late  Elagabalus,  in  the  hope  to  keep  them  quiet,  the 
Bishop  of  Narni,  John  XIII.  Yet  in  three  months 
they  blazed  up  once  more,  took  the  miserable  puppet, 
mishandled  him,  drove  him  from  the  city.  John 
collected  troops  in  the  Campagna,  returned,  and  was 
admitted  with  hymns  of  rejoicing.  The  Barons 
had  heard  that  Otho  was  approaching  for  the  fourth 
time  to  his  restless  capital. 

Christmas  came  (966)  ;  Pope  and  Emperor 
dealt  a  fearful  vengeance  on  the  rebels.  Their 
twelve  Tribunes  were  hanged  ;  their  dead  Prae- 
fectus  Urbis  was  dug  out  of  his  grave  and  dis- 
membered ;  their  living  one  hanged  by  the  hair  to 
the  equestrian  statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  then  set 
upon  an  ass,  scourged,  and  cast  into  prison.     Even 


EXECUTION   ON    THE    ROMANS 


165 


the  Greek  Emperor  cried  out  at  such  enormities. 
Liutprand  answered  for  Otho  that  it  was  the  law, 
Theodosian,  Justininian  :  fiigiilavit,  suspcndit,  exilio 
relegavit\  what  else  should  be  done  to  sacrilegious 
wretches?  John  XIII.  was  now  in  the  saddle  again 
He  went  with  his  patron  to  Ravenna  in  967,  and  got 


OTHO  I.  EMI'EROR  "THE  GREAT,"  A.l).  973. 

{From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum.) 


from  him  the  lands,  cities,  and  lordships  of  these 
Adriatic  regions, so  long  withdrawn  from  the  Holy  See. 
In  acknowledgment  he  crowned  Otho  II.  After 
seven  years  Pontificate  his  place  was  empty.  Otho 
named  Benedict  VI.  in  January,  973,  and  himself 
expired  in  May  of  the  same   year. 

He  is  termed  the  Great ;  with  reason   if  we  take 


1 66  ROMANCE   OF   THE   OTHOS 

into  account  his  marches,  fightings,  victories  over 
many  combatants,  his  honours  achieved,  and  extent 
of  sovereignty  nominal  or  effective.  Once  more  there 
was  an  Emperor  of  the  West.  Hugh  Capet,  Duke  of 
France,  and  Lothair  its  faineant  King,  were  Otho's 
nephews  on  his  sisters'  side,  Hedwiga  and  Gerberga. 
His  brother,  St.  Bruno,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  was 
also  Duke  of  Lorraine  and  the  Low  Countries  ;  with 
him  for  lieutenant,  Otho  governed  as  far  west  as 
Brittany.  The  Saxon  House  which  had  risen  upon 
the  ruin  of  the  Carlovingians  was  predominant  in  the 
Latin,  German,  and  Gallic  territories.  Such  a  reward 
had  fallen  in  less  than  sixty  years  to  Henry  the 
Fowler  and  his  lion-hearted  offspring.  Henry  (919- 
936),  says  Carlyle,  was  "  a  very  high  King,  an  authen- 
tically noble  human  figure,  visible  still  in  clear  outline 
in  the  grey  dawn  of  Modern  History.  The  Father  of 
whatever  good  has  since  been  in  Germany."  Twice 
he  beat  the  Huns,  at  Sondershausen  and  Merseburg  ; 
twice  the  Wends ;  besides  these,  the  Misnians,  the 
Czechs  from  whom  he  captured  Prague ;  and  the 
Danes  under  King  Gorm  the  Hard.  He  set  down 
the  Dukes  of  Suabia  and  Bavaria ;  appointed  six 
Wardens  of  the  Marches  ;  saw  that  his  burghs  had 
walls  round  them  ;  instituted  a  town  militia;  founded 
Quedlenburg  Abbey  and  many  others;  and  carried  St. 
Michael  the  Archangel  on  his  standard.  "  A  right 
gallant  King  and  Fowler,"  says  Carlyle. 

Undoubtedly;  nor  did  Otho  quite  come  up  to  his 
level.  We  have  seen  how  fierce  and  vindictive  he 
could  be ;  yet,  as  Thietmar  affirms,  "  never  since 
Charlemagne  did  so  mighty  a  ruler  and  guardian  of 


TENTH  CENTURY  CHARLEMAGNE  1 67 

his  country  hold  the  Imperial  seat."  For  thirty-six 
years  he  battled  strongly  to  put  down  rebellions 
in  Franconia  ;  conspiracies  of  great  Bishops  with 
Lorraine ;  incursions  and  alarums  of  Bohemians, 
Wends,  Danes  ;  and  the  House  of  Ivrea,  which  might 
have  grown  into  the  dynasty  of  Savoy  and  Italy. 
Then  his  son  Ludolph  revolted  with  many  prelates  ; 
Duke  Conrad  beckoned  to  the  Magyars  ;  and  they 
fell  upon  the  German  lands  savagely.  Otho  had  to 
pacify  his  people,  and  to  beat  the  Magyars  till  they 
went  away  for  good,  leaving  him  with  that  Italian 
coil  to  disentangle  which  kept  him  so  many  years 
south  of  the  Alps.  He  was  buried  at  home  in 
Magdeburg,  an  Archbishop's  seat  of  his  creation. 
The  Emperor  did  as  he  pleased  with  Bishops  and 
their  estates  ;  but  his  policy  aimed  at  making  the 
Church  wealthy,  as  a  counterpoise  to  his  revolting 
Dukes  and  Margraves.  He  is  well  named  the  tenth- 
century  Charlemagne  (936-973). 

After  his  decease  the  sanguinary  Roman  records 
yield  "  no  light  but  only  darkness  visible,"  in  the 
gloom  of  which  we  perceive  Crescenzio,  son  of 
Theodora,  and  brother  of  John  XIII.,  rising  up  to 
snatch  Benedict  VI.  into  St.  Angelo  and  there 
strangle  him.  Under  such  auspices  Franco,  the 
Archdeacon,  a  national  or  anti-German  choice,  calls 
himself  Boniface  VII.,  is  overturned  by  the  Imperial 
Resident  Sicco,  and  flies  to  Constantinople,  carrying 
with  him  the  sacred  vessels  from  St.  Peter's.  A 
grandson  of  Alberic  was  appointed,  surely  to  content 
the  partisans  of  that  still  indomitable  race.  Benedict 
VII.  lasted  nine  years.     Otho  II.,  a  man  of  war,  not 


l68  ROMANCE   OF   THE   OTHOS 

always  fortunate,  refined  and  somewhat  unsteady, 
had  come  to  Rome  in  980.  His  marriage  with  a 
Greek  PVincess,  Theophano,  gave  him  rights  over 
ApuHa  and  the  Far  South.  But  in  982,  the  Saracens, 
encamped  in  those  parts,  defeated  him  with  terrible 
slaughter,  and  he  escaped  them  only  by  flight.  His 
heart,  we  may  suppose,  was  broken.  Four  years  earlier 
he  had  beaten  his  French  cousin  Lothair,  led  sixty 
thousand  Saxons  and  Flemings  to  Paris,  and  chanted 
Te  Deum  on  the  heights  of  Montmartre.  Now  he 
retired  to  Rome,  where  a  new  Pope  of  his  making 
awaited  him — John  XIV.,  late  Italian  Chancellor  and 
Bishop  of  Pavia — almost,  the  Romans  would  have 
muttered,  a  German.  He  assisted  the  youthful 
Emperor  to  die.  Otho  was  not  yet  thirty  when  the 
atrium  of  St.  Peter's  received  his  worn-out  frame. 
A  child  of  three  represented  the  Saxon  Kings. 
Theophano,  his  mother,  took  him  to  Germany  ;  until 
he  grew  up,  she  would  be  Emperor.  John  XIV. 
must  have  shivered  when  he  was  left  alone  in  his 
palace. 

Crescenzio  had  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  the 
absconding  Franco,  protected  by  Court  influence  at 
Byzantium  ;  for  the  Easterns  would  not  give  up  their 
claims  on  Magna  Gra^cia.  His  return  was  speedy  ; 
his  acts  according  to  the  usual  pattern.  He  had 
soon  thrust  John  XIV.  into  the  oubliettes  of  St. 
Angelo,  where  the  wretched  North  Italian  perished, 
it  is  said,  by  hunger.  Then  Crescenzio  died,  and  his 
epitaph,  dated  984,  may  still  be  read  in  Sant'  Alessio 
on  the  Aventine,  where  he  lies  till  the  Judgment  Day. 
Franco  followed  him  next  year.     But  his  body  was 


A   MEDIEVAL   EUPHORION  1 69 

outraged  and  left  naked  in  front  of  "  Constantine's 
horse,"  that  is  to  say,  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and  his 
steed,  then  set  up  in  the  Lateran  piazza.  Young 
Crescenzio  II.  stepped  forward  as  Patrician  ;  he  did 
not  contest  the  Imperial  authority.  There  was  a 
Pope  John  XV.  ;  perhaps  also  an  Antipope ;  we  feel 
about  in  the  dark  of  history  for  persons  and  events 
at  this  time.  It  would  appear  that  John  underwent 
sufferings  which  compelled  him  to  retire  into  Tuscany. 
It  is  certain  that  when  Otho  had  reached  his  sixteenth 
year  the  Pontiff  invoked  his  aid.  But  in  April,  996, 
this  poor  shadow  slipped  away,  and  the  German 
youth  of  genius,  halting  at  Ravenna,  was  called  to 
Rome  by  Crescenzio,  acting  as  head  of  the  Republic. 
No  story  in  the  Middle  Ages  wears  upon  its 
brow  more  beauty  and  sadness  than  this  royal 
boy's  descent  to  the  South.  His  pure  young 
enthusiasm,  his  accomplishments,  friendships,  mis- 
fortunes, and  piteous  death,  fill  us  with  an  interest 
which  belongs  to  lyrical  tragedy.  One  pictures  him 
as  Euphorion — half  Greek,  half  German — with  his 
fair  features  and  golden  locks,  his  eyes  alternately 
piercing  and  dreamy ;  under  that  almost  feminine 
tenderness  the  wild  Teutonic  rage  looks  out  ;  he  is 
dowered  with  the  love  of  love,  the  scorn  of  scorn  ; 
he  is  adventurous,  detached,  a  pursuer  of  fame  and 
learning,  always  in  quest  of  greatness.  We  shall  not 
look  upon  his  like  again  till  Frederick  II.  reminds  ; 
us,  in  his  perfect  moments,  of  the  youth  he  could  \ 
never  have  excelled  and  would  have  done  well  to  v 
imitate  in  that  fervent  devotion  to  ideals,  which  not 
even  the  smoke  and  horror  of  certain  cruel  or  in-  Y 
fatuated  deeds  have  been  able  to  tarnish. 


I/O  ROMANCE  OF   THE   OTHOS 

Time  it  was  that  an  end  should  come  to  the  Roman 
anarchy,  now  more  than  a  hundred  years  prevaiUng 
— a  scandal  in  the  eyes  of  Christians  so  huge 
that  it  has  never  ceased  to  loom  upon  the  page  of 
history  like  a  thundercloud.  Otho,  brought  up  by 
an  admirable  mother,  felt  as  young  men  do  when 
they  set  out  on  their  adventures,  capable  of  the 
noblest  things.  At  Ratisbon  he  gathered  the  Bishops 
round  him — among  them  Gerbert,  lately  deposed 
from  Rheims.  A  crowd  of  high  German  prelates 
led  him  on  his  way  ;  he  confessed  and  was 
absolved  by  St.  Romuald,  Abbot  of  Emmeran.  The 
Lombard  Princes  did  homage  at  Pavia  ;  for  who 
could  resist  the  armed  host  descending  from  the 
Alps?  Soon  after  he  learned  that  John  XV.  was 
no  more  ;  in  accordance  with  his  grandfather's 
"  Privilege,"  the  Emperor  must  choose  the  Pope ; 
but  a  thrill  of  astonishment  passed  over  Europe 
when  news  came  that  Otho,  a  lad  of  sixteen,  had 
named  his  cousin  Bruno,  who  was  but  twenty-three, 
to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter.  The  Romans  were  ousted  ; 
in  Church  and .  State  a  German  held  the  sovereign 
power. 

Bruno,  son  to  the  Duke  of  Carinthia,  and  Otho's 
bosom  friend,  had  the  intense  purity,  and  not  a  little 
of  the  stern  temper,  which  we  remark  in  young  Saints. 
He  took  the  name  of  Gregory  V.  Rome  threw  wide 
its  gates ;  the  two  noble  kinsmen  were  enthroned, 
one  at  the  Lateran  as  Pope,  the  other  at  St.  Peter's 
as  Augustus.  Then  Otho  held  a  Court  before  which 
Crescenzio  II.  appeared  to  expiate  the  misdeeds  of 
his  ancestors,  the  Theophylacts,  and  his  own.     He 


POPE   LOVEGOOD  I/I 

was  found  guilty ;  the  Pope  begged  him  off,  not 
aware  that  Italians  never  forgive.  Crescenzio  left 
the  dock  to  spread  sedition  in  the  castellated  dens 
where  his  fellow-nobles  lurked.  Otho  dreamt  that 
his  quest  had  been  accomplished ;  he  set  out  for 
Germany  and  war  with  the  Slavjjiii  m  .  But  Rome 
was  not  reformed  in  a  day. 

Three  months  had  scarcely  elapsed  when  the  weary 
old  scenes  of  blood  and  massacre  were  enacted  again. 
Crescenzio  struck  an  attitude  which  some  might 
imagine  sincere — freedom,  the  Republic,  and  no 
doubt  Junius  Brutus,  furnished  his  eloquent  themes. 
That  Rome,  if  the  capital  of  Christendom,  owed  any 
duty  to  the  world  which  acknowledged  it,  none  of 
the  Crescenzi  have  ever  supposed.  But  mark  the 
first  appearance  of  the  Tribune,  who  was  to  culminate 
three  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  in  Rienzi.  The 
severe  young  Saint,  Gregory  V.,  had  made  few 
friends.  He  saved  his  life  in  the  tumult ;  but  when 
he  fled  to  Pavia  he  was  destitute  and  almost  alone. 
He  could  simply  excommunicate  the  Patrician,  which 
he  did  in  February,  997.  Crescenzio  replied  with 
an  Antipope,  Philagathus  or  Lovegood,  a  Calabrian 
Greek,  just  then  on  his  way  home  from  Constantinople. 
The  Empress  Theophano  had  made  him  Bishop  of 
Piacenza  ;  this  was  his  gratitude.  He  called  himself 
John  XVI. — John  had  grown  to  be  the  rallying-cry 
of  a  party  which  descended  from  Marozia  and  her 
son,  and  which  gloried  in  its  Roman  patriotism. 

Large  schemes,  it  is  said,  occupied  the  wealthy 
Antipope  and  his  Consul  when  Otho,  having  broken 
the  Slavs,  turned  down    to    Rome,  entered    without 


172  ROMANCE    OF   THE    OTHOS 

resistance  (the  cowardice  in  battle  of  these  street- 
rioters  is  remarkable),  and  set  up  Gregory  V.  again. 
We  would  fain  blot  out  the  next  page  in  his  life. 
German  wrath  had  now  got  the  upper  hand  of  Christian 
meekness.  Pope  Lovegood,  seized  in  the  Campagna, 
was  frightfully  mutilated,  his  eyes  and  his  tongue 
pulled  out,  as  Thietmar  declares,  by  Gregory's  own 
orders.  The  gentle  St.  Nilus,  Archimandrite  of  the 
Greek  convent  at  Grotta  Ferrata,  interceded  for  his 
countryman  in  vain.  Philagathus,  a  horrible  sight, 
was  paraded  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  and  then 
banished  to  a  monastery.  Yet  he  survived  until  1013, 
when  he  ended  his  days  at  Fulda. 

St.  Angelo  was  still  a  refuge  for  Crescenzio ;  and, 
as  it  seemed  impregnable,  the  story  ran  that  Otho, 
by  a  feigned  proposal  of  easy  terms,  lured  the 
Patrician  to  his  doom.  We  will  hope,  as  another 
account  tells  us,  that  it  was  taken  by  assault.  The 
Republican  hero  suffered  death  by  decapitation  on 
the  battlements ;  twelve  others  perished  with  him  ; 
their  bodies  were  hung,  head  downwards,  on  gibbets 
erected  above  Monte  Mario.  These  are  not  German 
customs  ;  but  in  Italy  traitors  have  been  so  dealt 
with,  in  fact  or  in  d^^y.  St.  Nilus  warned  Pope 
and  Emperor  that  their  deeds  would  come  in  judg- 
ment against  them.  Crescenzio,  with  his  golden 
halo  of  martyrdom,  had  left  a  son  to  avenge  him. 
And  though  the  Emperor  made  Rome  his  residence, 
he  could  not  defend  his  cousin's  life  in  that  world  of 
subtlety,  treason,  and  dark  dissimulation.  Gregory 
was  poisoned,  or  somehow  done  to  death,  on  February 
18,999. 


GERBERT    THE   PHILOSOPHER  1/3 

Romans  would  now,  they  probably  thought,  behold 
a  Pope  of  their  kith  and  kin,  after  an  intimation  so 
decisive.  The  musing  Emperor  thought  otherwise. 
He  could  light  upon  no  Cardinal  in  the  Lateran 
precincts  who  would  do  such  honour  to  Rome,  the 
world's  golden  head,  as  befitted  a  new  Augustan  era  ; 
but  there  was  one  whom  he  had  in  view,  a  miracle 
of  learning,  his  virtues  unimpeachable,  his  piety 
sincere  and  fervent.  After  the  German  Pope,  a 
French  philosopher,  a  man  of  letters,  acquainted 
with  Saracenic  universities  and  European  Courts, 
was  to  mount  the  Apostolic  throne.  Gerbert,  a 
name  which  reminds  us  of  y^neas  Silvius  Piccolo- 
mini  and  even  of  Erasmus,  became  Pope  Silvester  II. 
by  an  Imperial  decree.  "Rome,"  said  Otho,  "was 
the  world's  capital,  the  Roman  Church  mother  of  all 
Churches  ;  but  her  Bishops,  ignorant  and  careless, 
had  pulled  her  down,  made  her  riches  over  to  the 
basest  of  mankind,  stripped  the  altars,  given  up  their 
lawful  rights  to  usurp  those  of  the  Empire.  Con- 
stantine  and  Charlemagne  had  been  foolishly  prodigal 
in  their  Donations.  A  moderate  patrimony  was  now 
bestowed  ;  a  worthy  Pope  created." 

This  language,  these  visions,  the  youth  had  learnt 
from  a  man  whom  he  was  exalting  to  dangerous 
eminence.  Gerbert  started  so  low  down  and  mounted 
so  high  that  he  was  called  a  necromancer  by  his  con- 
temporaries, accustomed  to  see  Popes  and  Bishops  of 
noble  or  kingly  pedigree.  A  poor  lad  of  Auvergne, 
he  was  bred  up  in  the  Cluniac  house  at  Aurillac 
Chance  made  him  known  to  the  Count  of  Barcelona  ; 
he  travelled  into  Spain  ;  learned  mathematics  from 


174  ROMANCE    OF    THE    OTHOS 

Arab  texts  or  teachers  ;  visited  Cordova  and  saw 
the  Caliph,  Hakim  II.  It  was  the  splendid  noon 
of  JVJoorish  erudition,  philosophy,  poetry,  and  chival- 
rous knighthood — a  contrast  in  brilliant  colours  to 
the  Latin  world,  which  seemed  to  lie  on  its  d^ath-bel. 
in  frenzies  of  convulsion,  weak,  moon-struck,  imbecile. 
Gerbert  felt  the  charm  ;  when  he  went  up  to  his 
high  place  the  illiterate  Westerns  asked  if  he  were 
not  a  Manichaean,  in  league  with  powers  of  darkness. 
Count  Borel  took  him  to  Rome  in  the  last  days  of 
John  XII.  ;  he  was  remarked  by  Otho  I.,  and  sent 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  Adalbero.  From  the 
second  Otho  he  received  the  once  edifying  but 
now  degenerate  Irish-Italian  monastery  of  Bobbio. 
Its  corrupt  monks  and  litigious  lay  usurpers  drove 
him  thence  to  Rome,  where  he  could  get  no  satis- 
faction, and  to  Rheims,  where  he  taught  with  success 
during  ten  years.  He  wrote  the  Archbishop's  letters, 
corresponded  with  Adelaide  and  Theophano.  His 
patron,  Adalbero,  dying,  left  him  the  See.  It  was 
not  likely  that  an  obscure  student  could  make  good 
his  claim  while  Arnulf,  a  side-slip  of  the  fallen  French 
royalty,  stood  by  to  be  elected.  Hugh  Capet  had 
seized  the  crown.  Perhaps  by  way  of  conscience- 
money  his  vote  was  given  to  the  Carlovingian,  who, 
as  soon  as  he  held  Hincmar's  crozier,  plunged  into 
treason ;  he  was  betrayed  by  another  miscreant.  Bishop 
of  Laon,  to  Capet ;  and  was  tried  in  solemn  council 
of  prelates  and  nobles,  with  a  view  to  his  deprival 
(July,  991). 

Gerbert  laid  down  the  law  to  these  by  no  means 
reluctant    Bishops.       They    brought     Arnulf    to    a 


HIS   RISE   AND   FALL  1/5 

public  confession,  deposed  him,  and,  lest  he  should 
appeal  to  Rome  and  John  XV.,  declared  by  anticipa- 
tion their  attitude  towards  Popes  who  were  "  full  of 
all  infamy,  void  of  all  knowledge  ;  "  in  bold  words 
they  threatened  to  break  away,  as  Africa,  Asia,  Con- 
stantinople, had  done.  They  would  not  hear  of  a 
popular  election  ;  and  Gerbert,  their  master  or  mouth- 
piece, was  chosen  by  them  for  Archbishop. 

Thus  the  Manichee,  necromancer,  half- Moslem, 
had  shown  his  ambiguous  colours,  and  was  a  Gallican 
— nay,  should  we  not  call  him  a  Protestant  and 
Reformer,  some  centuries  too  soon  ?  The  traitor 
of  Laon  envied  his  eloquent  friend's  good  fortune  ; 
he  persuaded  the  German  Court  to  back  up  the  Pope, 
who  was  nettled  and  alarmed  by  such  severe  denuncia- 
tions, the  more  stinging  because  they  could  not  be 
refuted.  To  the  French  prelates  again  in  meeting 
came  Abbot  Leo,  as  Legate  a  latere.  His  first  charge 
was  to  undo  the  Synod  of  Rheims  ;  his  second  to 
deprive  and  interdict  Gerbert.  Hugh  Capet  had  no 
desire  to  provoke  the  clergy,  at  home  or  abroad,  by 
whose  connivance  and  favour  the  crown  passed  from 
Louis  le  Faineant  to  his  own  almost  sacerdotal 
dynasty.  He  suffered  the  great  scholar  to  be  put 
down  at  Moisson.  Gerbert's  household  forsook 
their  fallen  chief,  and  he  set  out  alone  for  the  Court 
of  Adelaide  and  young  Otho,  from  which  had  come 
his  misfortune. 

He  possessed  the  art  of  making  friends,  and,  it 
would  seem,  of  fascinating  even  his  enemies.  At 
all  events  he  conquered  the  hero -youth,  and 
filled   him    with   dreams    of    a    miraculous    Roman 


1/6  ROMANCE    OF    THE    OTHOS 

Renaissance  so  soon  as  the  first  Millennium  of 
Christianity  should  be  accomplished.  The  Auvergnat 
became  Archbishop  of  Ravenna  and  Supreme  Pontiff. 
His  pupil  had  built  a  palace  in  Rome  on  the  Aven- 
tine  ;  there  he  saw  in  vision  the  Fifth  Monarchy 
ruling  a  peaceful  world,  Pope  and  Emperor  united 
as  the  hope  of  mankind.  Silvester  II.,  who  could 
subdue  every  one  he  addressed,  did  not,  however, 
subdue  the  Romans.  They  shared  none  of  his 
apocalyptic  dreams  ;  they  abhorred  the  wise  French 
Pontiff;  they  conspired  against  the  German  Emperor. 
We  may  imagine  Rome  as  the  hungry,  untameable 
wolf,  chained  but  defiant,  whose  effigy  then,  as  in  our 
own  days,  the  citizens  regarded  with  a  love  which 
was  hatred  to  everything  not  Roman.  In  two  years 
they  had  rid  themselves  of  Gerbert  and  Otho. 

How  it  was  done  remains  a  mystery  of  iniquity, 
for  we  cannot  doubt  the  wickedness,  although  its 
agents,  like  their  victims,  died  and  made  no  sign. 
Legends  were  plentiful  in  so  credulous  a  world. 
This  one  which  tells  how  young  Otho  met  his 
doom  has  been  disputed,  yet  survives  with  stories 
of  the  House  of  Atreus  and  is  of  a  strain  as 
melancholy.  When  Crescenzio  II.  was  beheaded  on 
the  St.  Angelo  terrace,  his  beautiful  wife,  Stephania, 
it  is  said,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  wild  Germans. 
She  suffered  like  Lucretia  ;  unlike  Lucretia  she 
would  not  die,  but  waited  with  preterhuman  endur- 
ance till  she  could  get  her  revenge.  In  the  tale  she 
is  always  surpassingly  fair,  a  witch  in  cunning,  and 
able  to  move  with  her  young  son,  Crescenzio  III., 
among  the  Court  ladies  and  gentlemen  whom  Otho 


STEP  HAN  I  A  177 

entertained.  She  is  Delilah  and  catches  him  in  her 
silken  nets,  though  he  is  a  spirit  of  fire  and  purity, 
pilgrim  to  shrines  far  and  near,  but  at  last  "  effemi- 
nately vanquished,"  as  greater  men  had  been.  At 
some  banquet  the  woman,  true  type  of  Vittoria 
Accorombona  and  other  Roman  "  white  devils,"  to 
speak  with  our  English  tragedian,  gave  her  lover 
a  poison  which  did  not  kill  him  instantly,  but  which 
acted  in  slow  corroding  effects  upon  a  system  never 
too  strong.  He  drank  and  knew  not  that  death  was 
in  his  veins: 

Thus  far  the  legend,  which  Milman  believed  to 
rest  on  convincing  evidence.  What  history  tells,  yet 
as  a  confused  babble,  may  agree  with  it.  Tivoli, 
in  the  gorge  of  the  Anio  above  Hadrian's  classic  villa, 
was  a  town  belonging  to  cadets  of  the  Marozian 
dynasty.  It  had  become  a  rival  to  shrunken 
Rome,  and  was  now  in  revolt  against  Otho.  He 
marched,  in  looi,  with  soldiers  from  the  city,  to 
make  an  end  of  it,  taking  with  him  Pope  Silvester, 
who  never  would  be  left  alone  in  his  unguarded 
Lateran.  Tlie  Tivolese,  persuaded  by  a  foreign 
Pontiff,  laid  down  their  arms  and  accepted  the 
pardon  which  Otho  held  out  to  them.  But  where 
were  the  spoils  which  the  Romans  had  hoped  for  at 
starting?  On  his  return  with  empty  hands,  the 
Emperor,  as  he  sat  in  his  house  on  the  Aventine, 
saw  a  furious  mob  attempting  to  batter  in  his  doors. 
He  escaped  by  a  postern  ;  carried  away  the  Pope  to 
Ravenna  ;  and  never  set  foot  again  in  Rome.  Yet 
he  passed  its  inexorable  gates  more  than  once  on 
his    expeditions    to    Calabria.      He    had    gone    on 

13 


178  ROMANCE   OF   THE   OTHOS 

pilgrimage  to  expiate  his  former  deeds  of  violence, 
not  only  to  Monte  Cassino,  but  to  far-off  Gnesen  in 
the  Polish  land,  where  his  friend  St.  Adalbert  lay  in  a 
celebrated  shrine.  He  did  a  thing  yet  more  cha- 
racteristic of  the  age  and  himself:  he  opened  the 
crypt  in  Aix-la-Chapelle  where  dead  Charlemagne 
sat  in  his  chair  of  state,  bearing  his  crown  and 
sceptre  ;  from  the  dead  man's  neck  he  detached  a 
cross  of  gold  and  wore  it  as  a  relic  or  Imperial 
charm.  His  days,  it  is  said,  were  now  spent  in 
prayer  and  almsgiving.  But  nothing  could  save 
Otho,  and  we  seem  to  hear  a  muffled  sob  as  the 
chronicler  of  that  unpitying  time  records  how  he 
died  at  Paterno,  in  sight  of  Rome,  and  was  borne 
back  over  the  Alps,  until  he  came  to  Charles  the 
Great  once  more,  to  be  laid  at  rest  by  the  side  of  his 
heroic  predecessor.     He  was  only  twenty-two. 

Gerbert  followed  him  in  three  months.  Poisoned, 
says  the  Saxon  monk,  by  Stephania  ;  in  any  case, 
struck  dumb ;  broken  by  his  long  wanderings  ;  not 
suffered  to  reform  the  Church  he  had  so  magnifi- 
cently exalted  in  his  prophesyings,  or  to  lead  the 
Crusade  and  recover  Jerusalem,  over  whose  captivity 
his  letters  seem  to  weep.  Crescenzio  HI.  is  Consul  ; 
half  a  century  of  Tusculan  oppression  throws 
Hildebrand's  reform  into  far  perspective. 


XII 


TUSCULAN    SUCCESSION^PAPACV   BOUGHT   AND 
SOLD 


(1003- 1 048) 


TUSCULUM  is  a  spur  of  the  Alban  or  Latin  Hills, 
about  sixteen  miles  south-east  of  Rome.  It  had 
still  Greek  remains  scattered  in  its  glades  and 
thickets  when  Gregory,  Captain  of  the  Fleet  under 
Otho  III.,  restored  its  ancient  citadel,  ascribed  to 
Telegonus,  and  made  of  it  a  strong  castle.  He  was 
connected  with  Tivoli ;  but  now  that  the  Crescentine 
branch  of  his  ancestors  had  blossomed,  envy,  the 
Italian  vice,  prompted  him  to  cut  it  down  ;  he 
affected  a  devotion  to  the  Empire  ;  and  from  his 
rocky  nest  we  may  see  the  Ghibellines  descending 
over  Latium,  Tuscany,  the  whole  unhappy  land. 
Crescenzio  III.,  his  cousin  of  the  elder  stem,  lasted 
only  nine  years,  in  which  time  he  had  appointed 
three  Popes,  John  XVI I.  and  XVIII.,  and  Sergius  IV., 
son  of  a  cordwainer.  These  and  the  Consul  being 
dead,  who  should  succeed  ? 


SAINTS    ON   THE    THRONE  l8l 

There  was  an  Emperor  of  the  Saxon  House,  a 
Saint  and  warrior,  Henry  H.,  who  had  to  fight 
for  his  Iron  Crown  with  Arduin,  Marquis  of  Ivrea — 
the  Alpine  mountaineers  wanted  no  Germans  in 
Lombardy — and  he  was  busy  winning  the  great 
prelate-princes ;  he  could  not  previously  attend  to 
Roman  affairs.  Gregory  the  Tusculan  had  three 
sons,  Alberic,  Romanus,  Theophylact ;  the  last  a 
Cardinal.  By  gold  or  intrigue  he  contrived  the 
election  of  his  clerical  son,  though  not  without 
opposition  ;  and,  in  fact,  Benedict  VHL,  as  he  was 
styled,  had  to  take  refuge  at  the  Emperor's  feet  in 
Germany,  nor  did  he  come  back  until  peace  was 
made  with  Crescenzio  IV.,  the  city  Prefect,  who  held 
St.  Angelo  for  his  family.  In  1013  Henry  defeated 
Arduin  ;  with  his  Queen,  Cunegunda,  he  arrived  in 
Rome,  where  the  usual  ceremonies  of  coronation 
took  place.  Whether  Benedict  VIII.  lived  up  to  his 
sacred  character  we  do  not  know  ;  what  we  do  know 
is  that  he  cut  to  pieces  a  Saracen  army  which  had 
disembarked  at  Luni  in  Maremma,  and  sent  to  the 
Republics  of  Genoa  and  Pisa  vehement  letters, 
urging  a  naval  Crusade  for  the  recovery  of  Sardinia, 
which  was  accomplished.  The  Pisans  maintained 
that  he  had  given  them  the  island.  No  dignity 
seemed  secure  unless  ratified,  even  in  those  de- 
generate days,  by  a  Papal  grant,  which  carried  with 
it,  as  Hergenrother  observes,  not  so  much  depend- 
ence on  the  Holy  See  as  independence  of  all  other 
lords. 

Gerbert   had    raised     Poland    to   the    rank    of    a 
kingdom  and   consecrated   the   Hungarian  crown  of 


152  TUSCULAN  SUCCESSION 

St.  Stephen.  The  eleventh  century  was  beginning 
with  a  group  of  Saints  on  the  throne — Otho,  repentant 
and  a  pilgrim  ;  Robert  of  France,  who  lived  far  more 
strictly  than  his  own  Bishops  ;  this  Henry  II.,  a 
monk  in  all  but  nanie ;  and  the  Apostolic  Stephen, 
who  converted  his  Magyars  with  sword  and  crucifix. 
The  restoration  of  monasticism  had  been  Under- 
taken long  ago  at  Cluny.  Rome  was  the  dark  spot 
in  a  brightening  sky.  Yet  of  Benedict  VIII.  we 
hear  no  evil,  but  rather  good  ;  and  his  friendship 
with  Henry,  whom  he  visited  in  Bamberg,  accom- 
panied to  Monte  Cassino,  and  joined  in  an  expedition 
against  the  Greeks  of  Capua,  must  count  in  his 
favour.  Note  that  Henry  II.  made  a  grant  of  the 
city  and  bishopric  of  Bamberg  to  the  Holy  See  ;  this 
was  afterwards  exchanged  for  Beneventum,  a  treaty 
which  appeared  to  invest  the  Popes  with  dominion  of 
an  Imperial  sort  over  Naples.  It  was  an  unlucky 
transaction,  prologue  to  an  Iliad  of  woes  in  times  not 
far  distant. 

Twelve  years  passed  ;  Benedict  and  Henry  went 
to  their  graves  in  peace ;  and  Romanus  the  Senator 
took  or  bought  the  vacant  Chair.  In  one  day  he 
was  Prefect  and  Pope.  The  old  abuses  flourished  ; 
John  XIX.,  bred  a  layman  and  a  Tusculan,  was  not 
likely  to  end  them.  In  1027  he  crowned  the 
Emperor  Conrad,  in  presence  of  Rudolph,  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  and  the  Anglo-Dane,  Knut,  otherwise 
well  known  to  English  readers.  Knut,  a  pious 
traveller  to  St.  Peter's  shrine,  cannot  have  been 
edified  when  a  tumult  broke  out  in  the  very  church 
between   Milanese  and  Ravennates  on  the  question 


ABUSES   AMONG    THE    CLERGY  1 83 

of  precedence.  That  was  not  the  only  fighting  which 
disgraced  a  high  festival.  "  Undisciplined  Germans, 
turbulent  Romans,"  both  were  to  blame,  we  will  say. 
But  the  sure  thing  is  that  whenever  a  Teuton  came 
to  be  crowned,  blows  and  bloodshed  drew  a  crimson 
arabesque  about  '^le  glowing  page.  Always  the 
citizens  attacked  the  soldiers  and  got  beaten  for 
their  insolence,  this  time  with  great  slaughter. 
Conrad  insisted  on  their  leaders  appearing  before 
him  with  naked  feet  and  cords  round  their  necks, 
which  would  be  remembered,  not  to  his  advantage, 
when  he  was  gone.  Neither  did  he  reform  the 
Church  in  head  or  members.  The  clergy  in  almost 
every  part  of  Europe  were  marrying  or  giving  in 
marriage,  against  the  Canons  which  Nicholas  I. 
had  promulgated,  which  Silvester  II.  and  Bene- 
dict VIII.  had  tried  to  enforce.  But  the  evils  were 
felt ;  they  were  named  ;  simony  and  concubinage 
must  be  rooted  out  ;  if  the  clergy  would  not  cleanse 
the  holy  place,  then  their  rivals  and  adversaries  the 
monks  would  do  it.  A  scandal  yet  more  gross  than 
the  reign  of  John  XII.  precipitated  the  reformation. 

Still  the  House  of  Tusculum.  John  XIX.  went  to 
his  account  in  1032.  His  brother,  Alberic,  made 
one  son  "  Consul  Romanorum,"  another,  the  last 
Theophylact,  Pope.  This  was  a  lad  ten  QT-iwelve 
years  old,  who  had  the  title  thrust  on  him  of 
Benedict  IX.  An  hereditary  but  irregular  succession 
had  thus  kept  the  cross  keys  for  well-nigh  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  in  the  hands  of  Theodora's  descendants. 

At  a  distance  the  Papacy  was  ringed  about  with 
a  halo  in  which  the  individual   Pope,  good   or   bad, 


184  TUSCULAN  SUCCESSION 

seemed  lost.  So  rapid  a  transit  of  unknown  men 
left  the  faithful  indifferent.  Pilgrims,  indeed,  were 
plundered  ;  monks  groaned  in  their  prayers  over  the 
Church's  captivity ;  but  official  routine  never  quite 
ceased  ;  and  the  average  Italian  learnt  to  distinguish 
between  the  man  whom  he  despised  and  the  priest 
who  was  minister  of  the  Sacraments.  When  Abbot 
Leo  replied  to  Gerbert's  terrible  indictment  at 
Rheims,  he  admitted  all  the  charges — corruption, 
venality,  uncleanness,  bloodshedding-*-nor  was  he  a 
miscreant  personally ;  but  still  he  quoted,  Tu  es 
Petrus,  still  he  warned  his  audience  against  the 
impiety  of  cursed  Ham.  We  can  hardly  suppose 
that  Henry  H.,  had  he  been  living,  would  have  found 
no  flaw  in  the  election  as  CEcumenical  Pastor  and 
teacher  of  a  child  who  did  not  know  his  catechism. 
Unhappily,  Conrad  was  engaged  in  deadly  strifeX 
with  Heribert,  the  married  and  magnificent  Arch-  j 
bishop  of  Milan — another  real  Antipope,  forerunner  / 
of  King-Cardinals  and  Protestant  Hermanns  of  '' 
Cologne.  He  let  the  nomination  pass,  though  contrary 
in  letter  and  spirit  to  the  Canon  Law.  When  Benedict 
was  old  enough  to  travel  alone,  at  seventeen  or  there- 
abouts, he  joined  the  Emperor,  and  on  two  occasions, 
at  Cremona  and  Spello,  pronounced  the  ban  of  the 
Church  against  Pleribert — not,  we  may  be  sure, 
because  he  lived  as  a  disorderly  Bishop,  but  to 
chastise  the  rebel  or  the  patriot.  However,  a 
change  was  at  hand. 

For,  in  Rorne  itself,  Benedict  lived  up  to  his  pre- 
decessor John's  example  ;  he  was  a  bandit,  not  a 
priest,  stained  with   adulteries,  homicid^Sj^  the  vices 


A-'-S'l 


BENEDICT   SELLS    THE   PAPACY  1 85 

of  his  bringing  up  and  his  youth,  but  unopposed 
while  Gregory  his  brother  held  the  Consulate.  A 
tumult  at  length,  in  1044,  which  we  need  not  ascribe 
to  religious  indignation,  drove  him  from  the  city  and 
St.  Peter's.  His  Tusculan  guards  held  Trastevere  ; 
street-fighting  led  to  no  decisive  results ;  but  the 
opposite,  which  may  have  been  the  Crescentine, 
party  met  in  St.  Peter's,  assembled  in  conclave  and, 
not  without  bribery,  elected  John  of  Sabina,  who 
became  on  these  terms  Silvester  III.  Seven  weeks 
of  confusion  followed,  and  Silvester  was  compelled  to 
flee  into  his  native  mountains. 

Triumphant  Benedict  was  again  lord  of  Rome. 
But  on  May  Day  an  event  to  which  no  parallel  can 
be  found  in  Christian  records,  startled  the  city  and 
the  Curia.  Benedict  had  sold  the  Papacy,  for  money 
down,  to  the  wealthy  Arch-priest  of  St.  John  at  the 
Latin  Gate.  The  document  was  signed  and  sealed 
by  which  Apostolic  succession,  keys  of  St.  Peter,  and 
all  thereunto  belonging,  were  conveyed  to  John 
Gratian,  henceforth  to  be  Gregory  VI.  in  virtue  of 
hard  cash.  Every  one  writing  since  on  this  unspeak- 
able bargain  has  alluded  to  Didius  Julianus  who 
bought  the  Roman  Empire.  Simony  had  achieved 
its  masterpiece.  A  Pope  selling  the  Papacy,  a  Pope 
buying  it,  that,  as  the  French  say,  had  yet  to  be  seen. 
Electors  (if  in  the  chaos  of  law  we  could  tell  who 
were,  and  who  were  not,  entitled  to  the  office)  had 
taken  their  bribes  many  a  time,  and  were  to  do  so 
again ;  in  such  wise  that  the  eminent  modern . 
historian  Pastor  is  compelled,  with  a  blush,  to  remind 
some  critics  that,  until  Julius  II.  ordained  otherwise, 


1 86  TUSCULAN  SUCCESSION 

simony  did  not  vitiate  an  election  to  the  supreme 
seat  in  Christendom.  But  could  a  Pope  dispose  of 
it  like  a  worn-out  cloak  or  a  pair  of  old  shoes  ?  That 
was  a  new  point  for  Canonists.  One  might  parody 
St.  Jerome,  Ingeinuit  tottis  orbis  et  se  esse  sivwniacum 
miratus  est :  Simon  Magus  had  conquered. 

Motives  have  been  guessed  at  on  either  side. 
Benedict,  like  the  Cardinal  Caesar  Borgia  in  days  to 
come,  was  meditating  a  splendid  marriage,  and 
wanted  to  be  secularised.  John  Gratian  was  a  simple, 
pious  man,  who  devoted  his  riches  to  buying  out  a 


INSCRIPTION    IN   SANTA   SABINA  ON   THE  AVENTINE. 
{Fifth  Century,) 

scandalous  intruder,  not  otherwise  removable ;  or  he 
intended  a  larger  profit,  for  it  seems  certain  that  the 
moment  he  was  master  he  attempted  at  the  sword's 
point  to  get  possession  of  estates  held  by  lay  usurpers 
in  the  Campagna,  and  undertook  the  safeguard  of 
pilgrims  bringing  gifts  to  St.  Peter.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  Gregory  VI.'s  reputation  owes  no  small  debt 
to  a  monk  then  residing  on  the  Aventine  in  Alberic's 
monastery  del  Priorato,  whose  name  was  Hildebrand, 
and  who  became  his  chaplain  and  chief  counsellor. 
A  second    monk,   Damiani,  wrote  to  him   with  un- 


EMPEROR   DEPOSES    THREE   POPES  1 8/ 

conscious  sarcasm  from  Fonte  Avellana  (where  Dante 
would  one  day  brood  over  his  unearthly  visions),  that 
now  the  reign  of  simony  had  come  to  an  end. 
These  were  his  friends  ;  but  he  was  still  Didius 
Julianus. 

And  now  Henry  III.,  another  saintly  Emperor 
(one  cannot  forbear  a  blessing  on  these  good  Teutons) 
arrived.  In  1046,  at  a  numerous  Synod  in  Pavia, 
his  voice  was  lifted  up  against  the  traffic  which 
bought  and  sold,  not  only  in  the  Temple,  but  the 
Temple  itself  Gregory  VI.  hastened  to  meet  him 
at  Piacenza.  Benedict,  who  seems  to  have  missed 
his  intended  bride,  lay  behind  the  Cyclopean  walls 
of  Tusculum.  Silvester  had  got  back  St.  Peter's. 
There  had  been  a  moment  when  all  three  Popes 
held  their  court  in  Rome — at  the  Vatican,  St.  Mary 
Major's,  and  St.  John's.  The  Emperor  advanced  to 
Sutri.  Historical  parallels  have  their  use.  We 
are  reminded  here  of  the  Council  of  Constance, 
Sigismund  the  Emperor,  and  the  trio  of  doubtful 
Popes  in  141 5.  Was  any  one  of  these  valid? 
Henry  began  by  deposing  Silvester,  who  retreated 
into  a  monastery.  John  Gratian  acknowledged  his 
"shameful  and  simoniacal  heresy,  which  was  the 
work  of  the  devil,"  and  decreed  his  own  deposition. 
Benedict  would  not  come  down  from  his  fastness. 
Yet,  as  he  seemed  legitimate,  Henry  went  through 
a  more  solemn  procedure  against  him  in  St.  Peter's, 
and  only  then  appointed  his  man,  Suidger,  Bishop 
of  Bamberg,  by  whom  in  turn  he  and  the  Empress 
Agnes  were  crowned.  The  Romans  looked  on  in 
sulky  silence.     They   would   have  preferred  even    a 


1 8  8  TUSCULA  N  .  .S  UC  CESS  I  ON 

Tusculan  to  Clement  II.  It  might  have  been  wiser 
to  maintain  Gregory  VI.,  which  was  no  doubt 
Hildebrand's  judgment. 

When  the  Emperor  is  crowned,  it  is  time  for  him 
to  go.  Henry  went  south,  broke  the  rising  power 
of  Salerno,  took  under  his  protection  Melfi  and 
Aversa,  Norman  colonies  with  a  great  future  before 
them,  and  returned  by  the  Eastern  coast,  where 
Clement  expired  at  Pesaro,  October,  1047.  Benedict 
IX.,  it  was  whispered,  had  given  him  a  deadly  drink, 
and  the  dissolute  young  man  was  in  Rome  again. 
He  had  won  help  from  Boniface,  Marquis  of  Tuscany  ; 
he  meant  to  be  Pope  after  all.  Such  an  act  of 
rebellion  to  the  Empire,  of  dishonour  to  the  Church, 
did  that  noble  Boniface  share  in,  whose  grandfather 
Azzo,  Lord  of  Canossa,  sheltered  Queen  Adelaide, 
while  his  father  Tedaldo  had  received  large  benefices 
from  the  Saxon  house,  including  Mantua  and  Modena. 
Boniface  himself  held  possession  of  Tuscany  by  a 
like  privilege.  Hereafter,  his  only  child,  the  Countess 
Matilda,  would  make  up  for  this  disloyal  dealing,  and 
spend  her  life  in  service  of  the  Roman  Chair. 

John  Gratian  was  in  far-off  exile  with  his  chaplain, 
Hildebrand.  The  last  of  the  Tusculans  held  his 
court  of  misrule  nine  months ;  but  on  hearing  that 
Marquis  Boniface  would  not  support  him  against 
Henry,  he  fled  and  was  seen  no  more.  The  Bishop 
of  Brixen,  who  took  the  name  of  Damasus  II.,  had 
been  appointed  without  so  much  as  the  form  of 
election,  by  the  Emperor.  He  came  in  the  midst  of 
German  soldiers,  and  in  twenty-three  days  was  dead 
(August,    1048).       Again    the   sceptre    designated    a 


LEO   IX. 


89 


Roman  Pontiff,  cousin  to  the  royal  house,  of  stately 
bearing,  famed  for  virtues  and  miracles,  who  had 
stooped  to  the  lowly  Bishopric  ofToul.  Bruno  called 
himself  Leo  IX.,  and  when  he  set  out  for  Italy 
Hildebrand  went  with  him.  From  that  moment 
down  to  1085 — some  thirty-seven  years — the  monk 
from  Cluny  and  the  Aventine  governed  the  Church. 


XIII 


H  ILDEBRA  N  D 


(IO48-IO73) 


Lower  than  Benedict  IX.  it  was  impossible  that 

the  Papacy  should  fall  ;  and  higher  than  Hildebrand 

in  fact,  hardly  perhaps  in  idea,  it  could  never  soar. 

Humanly  speaking,  three  different  ways   of  escape 

from  degradation   might   be  imagined   for   it  in   the 

eleventh  century.     One  was  that  opened  by  Gerbert, 

but  which  death  hindered  him  from  advancing  upon 

— the  way  of  an  intellectual   new-birth,  not  without 

Arabian    influences,    or     even    Greek     and     classic 

revivals,  such  as,  long  after,  the  Renaissance  under 

Nicholas  V.  was  to  bring  forth.     A  second  was  the 

road    of    the    Emperors,    which    some    would    call 

Ghibelline,    Erastian,  or    merely   secular ;    but  Otho 

III.  is  the  most  convincing   proof  that  it  need  not 

have  fluttered  a  plume  in  the  crest  of  religion,  while 

upholding   the    rights  and   dignities    of    a  Christian 

State.     The  last,  which  turned  out  to  be  the  destined 

course  of  things,  divided  itself  for  nearly  two  centuries 

190 


REFORM  AT  CLUNY  IQl 

from  Gerbert's  philosophic  ascent ;  and  it  came 
almost  immediately  into  conflict  with  the  Imperial 
power.     It  was  the  way  of  monastic  reform. 

Monasticism  had.  separated  from  the  world.  If  it 
cherished  learning,  or  did  not  put  science  under  a 
ban,  yet  its  own  aim  was  not  knowledge,  but  the 
perfect  life — suinnia  Quies — as  expressed  in  vows  of 
poverty,  purity,  obedience.  It  could  not  transform 
society  at  large  into  a  cloister,  but  it  could  and  did 
make  a  cloister  of  the  Church.  It  reformed  the 
Papacy  by  seating  in  the  Chair  at  Rome  a  succession 
of  monks.  During  the  best  part  of  a  hundred  years 
the  Capital  of  Christendom  was  Cluny.  St.  Benedict 
avenged  himself  on  Benedict  IX.  by  ruling  the 
faithful  in  his  stead. 

That  is  no  figure  of  speech.  When  Rome,  under 
baleful  enchantments,  had  lost  the  very  shadow  of 
holiness,  wisdom,  and  spiritual  greatness  ;  when  her 
fine  gold  was  dim,  her  sanctuaries  held  by  brigands 
or  adulterers,  far  away  on  the  banks  of  Saone  and 
Loire  a  movement  was  beginning,  to  live  the  life 
which  Christ  had  lived,  in  silence,  labour,  detach- 
ment. The  Benedictine  Rule,  made  by  VVitiza  of 
Aniane  (817),  too  sharp  and  vexatious  for  daily  use,, 
had  long  been  forgotten.  Monasteries,  like  bishoprics, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  lay  lords,  their  concubines, 
children,  and  retainers.  Soldiers  clank  about  their 
courtyards  ;  hunting  dogs  give  tongue  in  sacred 
solitudes.  Monks  and  nuns  break  their  vows  ;  infants 
receive  the  abbot's  crook ;  lands  are  alienated, 
buildings  fall  to  ruin  ;  learning,  of  course,  is 
neglected.     Not  universally,  for  exceptions  might  be 


192  HILDEBRAND 

found  in  the  worst  of  times  ;  but  monastic  wealth  was 
tempting,  and  the  feudal  convert  scarcely  more  than 
half  a  Christian.  Between  him  and  the  Norman 
pirate  how  little  was  there  to  choose  ? 

At  this  dark  period,  in  910,  William,  Duke  of 
Aquitaine,  set  Berno  to  rule  over  his  foundation  of 
Cluny.  Now  had  monastic  hfe  its  second  spring. 
The  gentle  and  comprehensive  method  of  St.  Benedict 
prevailed  once  more  in  a  multitude  of  houses,  old 
and  new.  Many  were  derived  from  the  great  French 
centre,  others  independent.  Dunstan,  Abbot  of 
Glastonbury — statesman,  artist,  recluse,  reformer  of 
abuses — took  his  inspiration  from  it  in  the  Concordia 
Regularis.  Hanno,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  saw  it 
enforced.  Wurzburg,  Einsiedlen,  Hirschau — abbeys 
all  over  Europe — discovered  in  the  Great  Rule  a 
code  of  civilisation  as  well  as  of  piety.  Three 
hundred  churches,  colleges,  and  monasteries  looked 
to  Cluny  as  their  mother-house.  Its  abbots,  in  a 
long  line,  were  men  renowned  for  the  austerest 
virtues.  Peter  the  Venerable  is  worthy  of  his  name. 
St.  Hugh,  the  friend  and  ally  who  never  forsook 
Gregory  VII.,  built  himself  a  monument  in  the 
church  at  Cluny,  which  remained  the  largest  and 
most  imposing  in  Christendom  till  St.  Peter's  excelled 
it.  Lands,  revenues,  privileges  of  every  kind  were 
showered  upon  the  monks,  who  for  a  good  while 
used  them  as  they  were  meant,  to  the  public  benefit. 
But  now  a  contest  was  breaking  out  of  a  kind 
hitherto  scarcely  known.  The  parties  in  Hildebrand's 
first  period,  down  to  Henry  IV.'s  manhood,  were  on 
one  side  a  corrupt  Hierarchy  which   would  not  be 


A    PAPAL  JULIUS   C^SAR  1 93 

reformed,  and  which  could  rely  on  its  kinsfolk  among 
the  nobles  and  all  the  clergy  tainted  with  concu- 
binage ;  and,  on  the  other.  Pope,  Emperor,  and 
monks,  animated  by  the  genius  of  a  single  captain. 
For  Hildebrand's  "imperial  mind,"  as  Newman 
justly  terms  it,  directed  the  whole  series  of  campaigns 
which  at  last  issued  in  the  victory  of  monasticism. 

This  remarkable  man,  the  Julius  Caesar  of  the 
Papacy,  was,  like  Gerbert,  a  plebeian  ;  his  birthplace 
is  not  positively  ascertained.  His  father  is  said  to 
have  been  a  carpenter  of  Saona  in  Tuscany,  and 
that  he  had  German  blood  in  his  veins  we  may  well 
believe,  since  there  were  few  of  his  country  that  had 
not.  His  uncle  Laurence  had  become  Abbot  of  Sta. 
Maria  on  the  Aventine,  and  called  the  lad  to  him. 
In  self-restraint,  watching,  and  study  he  passed  his 
youth.  Some  uncertain  years  he  spent  at  Cluny, 
under  Odilo,  the  illustrious  reformer.  He  loved 
solitude,  but  duty  recalled  him  to  Rome  before 
Gregory  VI.  had  purchased  the  tiara ;  and  if  he 
consented  to  be  this  Pope's  minister  we  can  only 
suppose  him  ignorant  of  the  transaction,  or  persuaded 
that  a  subsequent  election  had  made  it  good. 
Historians  will  always  perhaps  take  different  sides 
when  they  write  of  Hildebrand  ;  none  would  charge 
him  with  hypocrisy  or  time-serving.  He  followed 
Gregory  across  the  Alps.  When  his  patron  died  he 
went  back  to  Cluny  ;  there  Pope  Leo  IX.  found 
him  and  carried  him  to  Rome.  Henceforth  he  is 
Gregory  VII.  in  all  but  name. 

The  most  Petrine  of  Popes  bore  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  St.  Paul.     His  letters,  of  which  we  possess 

14 


194  HILDEBRAND 

nine  books,  were  weighty  and  powerful,  but  his  bodily 
presence  was  weak,  his  stature  small,  his  delicate 
frame  racked  by  frequent  sickness.  In  friendship 
he  showed  himself  passionate  and  exacting.  He 
needed  sympathy,  yet  exercised  imperious  control  over 
every  one ;  learning  and  elegance  he  disclaimed, 
and  spoke  slightingly  of  his  "  rustic  style  "  ;  but  who 
could  be  more  daring  or  adventure  upon  a  new  line 
of  action  with  more  confidence  than  Gregory  VII.? 
Again,  like  St.  Paul,  he  brought  into  the  religion 
which  he  exalted  a  revolutionary  idea  ;  the  Apostle 
freed  it  from  Judaism,  the  Pope  from  Feudalism  ;  in 
their  hands  it  became  something  universal,  not 
bounded  by  race,  kingdom,  colour,  prerogative. 
What  has  been  called  the  essential  Democracy  of 
monasticism  appears  in  both  these  master-spirits,  to 
whom  rank  was  an  outward  show,  the  powers  of  the 
world  vain  or  transitory.  But  in  natures,  so  vehe- 
ment thought  is  flame  rather  than  light ;  nor  have 
they  ever  ceased  to  stir  up  enemies  as  fierce  as  their 
partisans  have  been  devoted. 

It  was  afterwards  told  that,  on  meeting  Leo  IX., 
Hildebrand  counselled  him  to  put  off  his  Papal 
insignia,  enter  Rome  on  foot,  and  solicit  the  votes 
of  a  genuine  election.  We  cannot  be  sure  ;  and  it 
signifies  little.  The  new  Pontiff  had  been  chosen 
in  Germany.  He  was  a  graceful,  energetic  presence 
wherever  he  went — the  first  of  those  Apostolic  pil- 
grims who  travelled  over  Europe,  holding  Councils, 
correcting  abuses,  receiving  the  homage  of  Kings 
and  crowds.  Popes  truly  CEcumenical.  He  restored 
St.  Peter's,  visited   Monte  Cassino,  which  was  then 


o   ^ 

Q 
in 
H 

O 


196  HILDEBRAND 

growing  to  its  height,  and  the  picturesque  St. 
Michael's  Mount  in  Calabria,  from  which  those 
others,  French  and  Cornish,  take  their  name.  But 
his  task  lay  before  him.  Hildebrand  summed  it 
up,  "to  take  their  wives  from  the  clergy,  their  in- 
vestitures from  the  laity."  A  celibate  ministration, 
freedom  of  election,  security  of  the  Church  estates, 
such  was  the  programme.  Towards  its  fulfilment 
hardly  a  few  in  the  episcopal  ranks  would  lend  a 
hand  ;  the  highest  were  its  resolved  opponents.  Leo 
might  count  on  St.  Hugh  of  Cluny,  on  Hildebrand, 
on  St.  Peter  Damiani ;  and  popular  opinion,  which 
reveres  a  virtue  it  cannot  equal,  took  part  with  the 
monks  against  disedifying  secular  canons,  married 
priests,  and  high-born  tyrannical  prelates.  In  1048 
Leo  began  his  visitation  of  the  churches  of  Europe. 
Rome  must  be  reformed  from  the  circumference.  It 
had  lost  its  savour,  though  Hildebrand  has  in  later 
times  been  held  up  as  a  Roman.  But  he  never 
was  a  cleric,  and  the  school  of  the  Lateran  could  lay 
no  claim  to  him. 

At  Pavia  Leo  held  a  Council ;  he  crossed  into 
Germany,  met  the  pious  Archbishop  Hermann  of 
Cologne  and  Henry  the  Emperor  ;  excommunicated, 
subdued,  converted  Godfrey  of  Lorraine,  a  freebooter 
who  now  lost  his  Dukedom,  and,  after  public  scourg- 
ing, humbly  rebuilt  with  his  own  hands  the  Church 
of  Verdun,  which  he  had  burnt.  So  mighty  was 
religion  when  a  Saint  wielded  its  power  in  the  ages 
of  faith  !  Leo  passed  on  into  France.  He  dedi- 
cated Rheims  Cathedral,  not  yet  the  exquisite  and 
sumptuous    Gothic    which    we   know ;    he    gathered 


JOURNEYS   OF  LE9  IX.  1 9/ 

the  Bishops  next  morning,  and  charged  them  as  at 
the  Great  Day  to  confess  if  they  had  bought  their 
consecration.  Treves,  Lyons,  Besangon,  professed 
their  innocence.  Four  others  allowed  themselves 
guilty.  Hugo  of  Rheims,  a  notorious  simoniac,  kept 
silence.  But  he  could  not  escape  a  summons  to 
Rome.  The  Bishop  of  Langres,  convicted,  took 
flight ;  others  were  deposed ;  absentees,  who  would 
not  join  the  Pope  in  council  on  French  territory, 
underwent  a  similar  fate.  The  Papal  primacy,  en- 
dangered by  all  Vve  have  recited,  was  proved  from 
the  Canons.  Leo  had  undone  the  Galilean  measures 
of  Gerbert. 

Scenes  not  less  decisive  were  witnessed  in  the 
Council  at  Mayence  ;  the  Metropolitans  bowed  before 
the  Pope  ;  Sibico  of  Spires  underwent  his  trial ;  and 
Leo,  as  he  returned  towards  Italy,  visited  Fulda  and 
confirmed  the  privileges  of  many  German  convents, 
acting  as  supreme  Lord  in  spirituals.  In  five  years 
he  crossed  the  Alps  three  times.  He  would  not 
endure  that  even  German  Bishops,  who  now  filled 
North  Italian  Sees,  should  lift  their  heel  against  the 
Papacy.  Humfred  of  Ravenna  was  put  down, 
restored, .  and  died  suddenly.  By  Leo's  appearance 
in  the  camp  at  Presburg  (105 1)  and  his  persevering 
efforts,  the  Emperor  was  induced  to  offer  Andrew  of 
Hungary  a  peace  which  the  latter  refused.  At 
Worms,  next  year,  he  made  an  attempt  to  get  back 
for  Rome  thirty-one  churches  and  forty-seven  monas- 
teries north  of  the  Alps  which  had  been  taken  away, 
including  Bamberg;  and  now  it  was  that  in  exchange  for 
the  latter  Leo  accepted  Beneventum,  the  fatal  heritage. 


19^  HILDEBRAND 

Antipapal  enmities,  smouldering  beneath  the 
ashes  of  simony,  burst  into  lava-floods,  as  he 
seemed  to  grow  more  Italian  and  less  German.  The 
troops  which  had  been  promised  him  were  denied. 
Still  he  marched  from  Mantua,  with  Suabian  knights 
and  condottieri,  a  loose  array,  to  combat  the  Normans 
under  Robert  Guiscard.  He  received  Capua,  which 
had  thrown  off  its  Prince.  He  dreamt  of  conquering 
Sicily.  Peter  Damiani  raised  his  voice  in  loud 
reprobation  of  a  militant  Pontiff;  such  acts  were  no 
better  than  the  Apostle's  denial  and  David's  adultery. 
Judgment  soon  followed  them.  June,  1053,  saw  the 
Normans  victorious  at  Civitella  and  Leo  in  their 
hands  a  prisoner.  He  forgave  them,  returned  to 
Beneventum  where  he  did  penance  for  his  late  martial 
exercises,  arrived  in  Rome,  and  ordered  his  open 
coffin  to  be  set  in  front  of  St.  Peter's  shrine. 
With  deep  solemnity,  he  uttered  over  it  a  dying 
speech,  not  unlike  those  words  of  the  Emperor 
Severus,  Omnia  fui  et  nihil  expedit.  He  had  been  a 
monk  in  his  cell,  a  Pope  in  his  palace  ;  all  had  shrunk 
to  this  narrow  stone.  Then  he  died  in  a  transport 
of  religious  exaltation,  April   13,  1054. 

Hildebrand,  without  a  moment's  delay,  hastened 
from  France.  Archdeacon  of  the  Roman  Church,  he 
had  been  sent  to  quell  the  subtle  rationalising  heresi- 
arch,  Berengar  of  Tours,  who  disputed  or  denied  the 
Catholic  view,  maintained  by  Lanfranc,  and  said  to 
have  been  imperilled  by  Scotus  Erigena,  of  the 
Eucharist.  We  are  not  to  dwell  on  this  controversy. 
Enough  that  Hildebrand,  assailing  the  lion  in  his  den, 
held  a  Council  at  Tours,  which  he  would  doubtless 


ARCH   OF  TRAJAN   AT   BENEVENTUM. 


200  HILDEBRAND 

have  carried  to  an  orthodox  conclusion  did  he  not 
hear  or  suspect  that  Leo  was  dying.  From  Berengar 
he  took  a  declaration,  ambiguous,  seemingly  sufficient, 
which  was  afterwards  made  a  charge  against  himself, 
and  broke  up  the  Council.  Then  he  assumed  the 
government  of  the  vacant  See.  The  interim  lasted  a 
whole  year. 

Boniface  of  Tuscany  had  been  murdered.  His 
large  dominions,  which  embraced  so  much  of  Central 
and  Northern  Italy,  went  to  his  wife,  Beatrice,  and  she 
chose  to  marry  the  brigand-Duke  of  Lorraine,  now 
under  Henry  UI.'s  Imperial  ban.  His  brother 
Frederick  had  been  made  Cardinal  by  Pope  Leo. 
This  combination  of  rival  powers  was  unendurable 
to  the  Germans  ;  and,  it  would  appear,  to  Hildebrand. 
He  invited,  nay  compelled,  Gebhard,  Bishop  of  Eich- 
stadt,  to  ascend  the  Papal  Chair  ;  for  Gebhard,  though 
hostile  to  Leo,  was  at  reforming  prelate,  the  Emperor's 
trusty  counsellor,  and  yet,  in  the  language  of  later 
times,  a  true  Guelf  The  Bishop  accepted  reluc- 
tantly;  he  became  Victor  II.;  and  Henry  followed 
him  with  a  formidable  host.  The  usurping  Duke 
Godfrey  fled — but  into  German  quarters  where  he 
could  stir  up  rebellion.  Beatrice  and  her  daughter 
Matilda  the  Emperor  kept  in  his  hands.  A  Council 
at  Florence  forbade  (how  vainly  !)  the  alienation  of 
Church  lands  to  laymen.  Victor,  just  or  severe, 
narrowly  escaped  poisoning  at  the  altar.  In  1056 
Henry,  worn  out  by  insurrections,  expired  at  Goslar, 
leaving  his  son  and  the  Empire  to  Victor's  tutelage. 

A  strong  Pope,  by  the  confession  of  all,  he 
made  peace   among   the   Germans,   did   not    offend 


VICISSITUDES   OF  STEPEN  IX.  201 

Godfrey  of  Lorraine,  and  restored  the  Cardinal 
Frederick  who  had  been  in  exile  as  lo.ng  as 
Henry  III.  lived.  He  held  his  court  at  Ancona, 
his  synod  in  Florence  ;  he  despatched  Hilde- 
brand  a  second  time  to  France  that  he  might 
depose,  reform,  reclaim  on  the  lines  of  Ultramontane 
policy.  His  least  defensible  act,  the  setting  aside  of 
Abbot  Peter,  and  installing  Frederick  of  Lorraine  at 
Monte  Cassino,  is  ascribed  by  Tosti  to  the  bold  Arch- 
deacon. It  was  hardly  done  when  Victor  passed  away  at 
Arezzo  (July,  1057).  Godfrey  and  Beatrice  ruled  as  Im- 
perial lieutenants  in  Italy.  The  Romans,  their  master 
away  in  France,  clamoured  for  Cardinal  Frederick. 
He  yielded,  whether  from  ambition  who  shall  say  ? 
No  churchman  could  go  beyond  Stephen  IX.  in  zeal 
or  austerity.  As  Legate  in  Byzantium  he  had  excom- 
municated the  Patriarch  Michael  and  his  Eastern 
colleagues.  He  now  raised  Damiani  to  the  purple  ; 
proposed  immense  schemes  to  Godfrey  ;  took  for  the 
Crusade,  but  sent  back  again,  the  treasures  of  Monte 
Cassino  ;  and  in  March,  1058,  was  dead  at  Vallom- 
brosa,  where  St.  John  Gualbert  attended  his  last 
moments.  Stephen  IX.  is  a  strange  and  splendid 
apparition,  enigmatic  to  us,  but  not  easily  forgotten 
in  the  Papal  gallery. 

They  say  that  he  was  poisoned.  The  familiar 
Roman  factions  sprang  on  the  stage  ;  Crescenzio,  the 
Tusculans,  the  Count  of  Galeria  chose  Benedict  X. ; 
clearly  they  felt  no  shame  in  calling  to  memory 
Benedict  IX.  The  Emperor  was  a  child,  the  Arch- 
deacon still  away ;  and  they  wanted  no  reform. 
Their  candidate  was  a  Crescentine,  Bishop  of  Velletri. 


202  HILDEBRAND 

He  made  lavish  donations  to  the  people ;  St.  Peter's 
ornaments  were  coined  into  money.  Peter  Damiani 
protested  ;  Hildebrand  made  a  league  with  the 
Empress ;  and,  in  virtue  (it  must  be  supposed)  of 
rights  granted  to  Otho,  Henry  H.,  and  Henry  HI., 
persuaded  her  to  name  the  Archbishop  of  Florence,  a 
Burgundian,  Gerard,  who  advanced  under  such  sup- 
port to  Rome,  and  was  recognised  as  Nicholas  H. 
His  rival,  degraded,  taken  by  Hildebrand— yes,  with 
Norman  help— shut  up  in  the  convent  of  St.  Agnes, 
figures  yet  as  Pope  in  the  catalogues.  A  crisis  had 
arrived.  Was  not  the  Roman  Archdeacon  acting  as 
a  Ghibelline?  The  Chancellor,  Guibert,  who  repre- 
sented the  Empire — could  he  legitimate  this  new 
election  ?  Either  Rome  must  henceforth  sink  to  be, 
in  spirituals  as  in  temporals,  a  fief,  an  investiture,  on 
a  level  with  Mayence  and  Hamburg,  or  every  secular 
lord,  including  the  Emperor,  must  withdraw.  When 
he  lay  dying  at  Salerno,  in  1085,  Gregory  wrote  that 
his  aim  had  ever  been  to  make  the  Church,  "  free, 
chaste,  Catholic."     And  was  this  freedom  ? 

In  the  Lateran,  meanwhile,  under  his  guidance,  a 
Council  proceeded  to  draw  up  rules  which,  allowing 
the  Emperor  some  shadowy  right  of  approbation, 
vested  in  the  seven  Cardinal  Bishops  and  their  fellow- 
members  of  the  Sacred  College  the  real  election.  At 
Rome,  if  circumstances  would  permit;  otherwise,  wher- 
ever a  peaceable  choice  could  be  made.  The  Roman 
laity,  no  less  than  the  German  Caesar,  thus  forfeited 
powers  which,  as  our  history  demonstrates,  they  had 
seldom  exercised  with  discrimination,  never  once  in 
view  of  the  Church  at  large.     Seventy  Bishops  signed. 


NORMAN  FIEFS  203 

They  also  compelled  Berengar,  who  was  brought 
before  them,  to  abjure  his  doctrine,  or,  at  least, 
imagined  that  he  had  done  so,  in  terms  which  he 
afterwards  explained  away. 

Robert  Guiscard  and  his  Normans,  still  excom- 
municate, had  overrun  Apulia  ;  the  last  Greek  official 
had  sailed  to  Byzantium.  Robert's  policy  had  never 
been  inflexible — Guiscard  means  "  the  Cunning  " — 
and  he  now  sent  messengers  begging  of  Nicholas  II. 
to  take  away  the  ban.  In  the  synod  of  Melfi  it  was 
done.  Nay  more,  the  Pope  made  Richard  Prince  of 
Capua ;  to  Robert  he  gave  Apulia,  Calabria,  Sicily 
(when  the  island  could  be  got  from,  its  Moslem  in- 
vaders), all  to  be  held  as  fiefs  of  the  Holy  See.  This 
bargain  ratified,  he  took  a  Norman  guard  with  him  to 
Rome.  Before  long  they  were  treading  down  the  old 
nobility ;  they  laid  waste  their  lands  and  subdued 
their  castles  as  far  as  Sutri.  Nicholas  died  in  1061. 
To  exclude  Hildebrand,  the  barons  named  young 
Henry  IV.  their  Patrician,  and  were  prepared  to  take 
a  Pope  of  his  choosing.  The  Archdeacon  looked  on 
scornfully.  By  way  of  compromise  the  Cardinals 
elected  an  Italian,  but  a  Lombard,  Anselm  of 
Lucca,  who  was  known  as  Alexander  II. 

We  enter  now  on  a  period  of  Antipopes.  The 
secular  Roman  party,  whom  their  enemies  described 
as  Simonians  and  even  worse,  persuaded  the  German 
Court  to  fix  on  Cadalus,  Bishop  of  Parma,  who  was 
at  once  acclaimed  by  the  Lombards  of  Milan  and  the 
neighbouring  regions  as  Honorius  II.  What  had 
taken  place  in  the  ancient  city  of  St.  Ambrose  to 
render  this  feasible,  shall  be  told  by  and  by.     In  the 


204  HILDEBRAND 

Spring  Benzo  of  Albi,  his  agent,  who  Hkewise  repre- 
sented the  Emperor,  arrived  in  Rome,  scattered  his 
bribes  right  and  left,  drove  out  Alexander,  and  warned 
the  Senate  that  a  Pope  could  not  be  elected  by  monks 
and  Normans — in  aword,  by  Hildebrand.  Soon  after 
Cadalus,  with  troops  and  treasure,  came  to  Sutri ;  he 
was  at  Tusculum,  and  the  Alexandrian  forces  cowered 
inside  the  walls  of  Rome.  Godfrey  the  Duke  ap- 
peared as  a  Deus  ex  machina^  with  more  soldiers 
than  either  party.  The  candidates  must  retire  and 
submit  their  claims  to  examination.  Scarcely  had 
they  done  so  when  news  was  brought  of  a  revolution 
in  German  affairs.  Hanno  of  Cologne  had  dared  to 
kidnap  Henry  IV.  from  the  Empress  Agnes.  Godfrey 
joined  him ;  Damiani  left  his  cloister,  appeared  at 
Augsburg,  pleaded  in  his  quaint  yet  passionate  way 
for  Alexander,  and  won  the  assembly.  But  still  two 
Popes  divided  the  capital  of  Christendom ;  at  St. 
Angelo,  the  Parmesan  with  his  secular  Barons  ;  at  St. 
John  Lateran  the  Bishop  of  Lucca. 

For  two  years  (i 063-1065)  this  unseemly  spectacle 
continued.  That  ill-fated  lad,  Henry  IV.,  was  tossed 
from  one  hand  to  another  ;  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne, 
whom  his  monastic  friends  called  a  saint,  had  given 
way  to  Adalbert  of  Bremen ;  a  war  of  churchmen 
ensued,  with  abbeys  plundered,  monks  despoiled — it 
was  the  heyday  of  insolent  and  greedy  feudal  Bishops, 
intent  on  their  own  aggrandisement.  At  length  a 
conspiracy  of  princes  and  prelates  in  the  Diet  of 
Tribur  flung  Adalbert  down.  Henry  must  abandon 
him  or  yield  his  sceptre.  He  attempted  flight,  could 
not  manage  it,  and  saw  the  Archbishop  fall.     That 


ACCLAIMED  POPE  205 

was  the  signal  of  Hanno's  triumph ;  with  him  the 
monastic  party  returned  to  power  ;  Cadalus  heard  the 
news  in  St.  Angelo,  and  paying  his  gaoler  Cenci  three 
hundred  pounds  of  silver,  he  escaped  to  the  North. 
At  Mantua  the  Germans  recognised  Alexander  in 
1067  ;  Cadalus  assailed  the  city  and  was  driven  off  by 
the  Tuscan  Godfrey,  after  which  he  did  nothing 
memorable  and  died  in  obscurity.  Meanwhile  Gui- 
bert  accepted  the  wealthy  See  gf  Ravenna.  In  1073, 
after  a  stormy  reign  of  twelve  years,  Anselm  of  Lucca 
died.  Hildebrand,  who  seemed  to  choose  Popes  and 
to  bury  them,  was  performing  the  funeral  obsequies 
in  St.  John  Lateran  when  the  acclamations  of  the 
people  and  Cardinal  Hugo's  eloquence  summqned 
him  to  the  vacant  place.  The  crimson  mantle  was 
thrown  about  him,  the  tiara  set  on  his  head.  He 
wept,  refused,  fell  ill.  But  he  could  not  escape  the 
burden  ;  and  he  announced  his  election,  it  is  said  in 
words  of  grave  warning,  to  Henry  IV. 


XIV 


HENRY    IV.    AT   CANOSSA 


(1073-1076) 


Never  did  man  embark  on  a  voyage  so  seemingly 
desperate  as  that  to  which  Gregory  VII.  was  now 
committed,  body  and  soul.  What  did  he  propose? 
To  reform  the  Church,  cleanse  and  renew  the  corrupt 
Hierarchy,  set  it  free  from  its  bondage  to  kings  and 
nobles,  and  in  doing  so,  to  abase  the  Empire,  which 
until  of  late  had  been  his  stay.  Such  a  policy,  straight 
as  an  arrow  to  his  own  apprehension,  appeared 
crooked,  subtle,  and  devilish  in  the  eyes  of  many, 
and  those  not  always  depraved.  Against  him  stood 
up,  rank  after  rank,  the  thousands  of  clergy  who 
would  rather  forego  their  livings  than  their  wives. 
On  the  Bishops,  gorged  with  plunder  and  open  law- 
breakers, he  might  count  for  a  determined  opposition. 
Nor  did  the  people,  who  like  himself,  were  little 
better  than  born  serfs,  rise  to  that  view  of  Church  or 
Papacy,  pure  in  its  angelic  brightness,  with  its  gleam- 
ing sword  unsheathed  to  smite  even  royal  vice,  which, 

206 


Gregory's  letters  207 

as  his  letters  testify,  was  habitual  with  him.  "  To 
forsake  righteousness,"  he  said,  "  is  to  make  ship- 
wreck of  the  soul  "  ;  and  with  ^schylean  energy,  "All 
the  attempts  of  mortals  are  but  straw  and  stubble 
against  the  rights  of  St.  Peter  and  the  power  of  the 
Most  High." 

His  Bible  he  knew  by  heart.  In  all  his  epistles  it 
overflows,  as  in  St.  Bernard's  sermons  and  corre- 
spondence ;  it  shapes  his  thought,  enforces  his  argu- 
ment ;  no  Puritan  lived  more  habitually  in  the 
atmosphere  of  Psalms,  Prophets,  Old  Testament 
Theocracy.  He  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  scholar  ;  but 
the  "  rustic  style  "  in  which  he  gloried  is  a  tesselation 
of  Scripture  phrases  ;  he  wrote  and  spoke  as  a 
Prophet  to  the  degenerate  House  of  David.  His 
favourite  word  —  it  was  the  last  he  uttered — is 
"  righteousness."  But  he  is  often  weary  of  the  sun  ; 
in  writing  to  his  dearest  friends,  the  Countess  Beat- 
rice of  Tuscany  and  her  daughter  Matilda,  he  lets 
fall  the  strong  expression,  "  I  was  desperately  ill, 
now  I  am  well  again,  and  sorry  for  it."  Elsewhere, 
he  says  to  Hugh  of  Cluny,  "  An  immense  sadness, 
sorrow  without  a  break,  encompasses  me  round 
about.  I  have  lived  twenty  years  in  Rome  against 
my  will."  He  calls  it,  "  this  Rome,  to  which  the 
Almighty  brought  me  back  in  chains "  ;  had  Pro- 
vidence laid  so  heavy  a  burden  on  Moses  or  Peter, 
they  would  have  died  under  it;  his  own  days  are 
a  living  death ;  he  is  always  fainting  and  crying, 
"Lord,  take  me  away  from  this  world  ;  make  no  long 
delay ! " 

Those  who  would  resolve  Gregory  or  men  of  his 


2o8 


HENRY  IV.   AT  CAN  OSS  A 


temper  into  ambitious  hypocrites,  make  no  allowance 
for  the  strength  of  a  reforming  passion,  kindled  in  the 
cloister,  fed  upon  deep  and  secure  beliefs.  Hilde- 
brand   led   a   mighty  movement   which  carried  him 


ST.    GREGORY    VII.,    POPE    A.D.    I085. 

{From  an  old  engraving.) 


along  at  the  same  time.  It  was  not  of  his  creation. 
When  he  proposed  to  abolish  lay  investiture  and 
clerical  marriage,  he  was  summing  up  an  idea  which 
during   the   last   hundred   years   had    been    silently 


CELIBACY  AND   FREEDOM  209 

gathering  force.  His  raptures,  fasts,  vigils,  scourgings, 
while  they  bore  witness  to  the  man's  sincerity,  dis- 
closed an  ascetic,  unworldly  type  of  the  Christian  life, 
in  which  thousands  believed  perfection  to  consist, 
while  none  could  less  resemble  the  ways  of  the 
beneficed  priest  or  his  patron  and  tyrant  the  military 
Prince-Bishop.  Could  celibacy,  instead  of  being  the 
rare  exception,  become  the  rule,  it  would  reform  the 
clergy  as  by  a  magic  stroke.  And  if  laymen,  includ- 
ing the  Emperor,  ceased  to  traffic  in  church-livings, 
the  scandal  of  a  luxurious,  negligent,  feudal  Hier- 
archy would  come  to  an  end.  That  this  Reign  of 
the  Saints  might  turn,  as  in  other  times,  to  an  all- 
embracing,  irresistible  despotism — to  Florence  under 
Savonarola,  to  Geneva  under  Calvin,  to  Presbyterian 
Scotland  or  Puritan  New  England — Gregory  did 
not  imagine.  He  spoke  always  of  the  Church's 
freedom. 

In  the  first  authentic  Decretal,  Siricius  had  insisted 
with  the  Archbishop  of  Tarragona,  and  through  him 
to  the  Spanish  Church,  that  every  bishop,  priest,  and 
deacon  must  be  celibate.  A  Council  of  Carthage  in 
397  calls  this  an  Apostolic  law  ;  and  though  Vigi- 
lantius  protested,  Innocent  I.  (417)  renewed  the  enact- 
ment ;  St.  Leo  extended  it  (440)  to  sub-deacons  ; 
and  such  has  ever  been  the  discipline  of  the  West. 
If  a  married  man  took  orders,  his  wife  entered  a 
convent  or  abode  under  his  roof  as  a  sister.  Thus  we 
meet  the  curious  names  of  presbytera  and  episcopa  in 
Church  history,  and  we  read  of  priests'  or  bishops' 
children.  In  the  East,  however,  custom,  which  had 
always   been  acquainted  with  a  married  clergy,  per- 

15 


2IO  HENRY  IV,   AT   CANOSSA 

mitted  matrimony  to  stand  with  orders  in  the  lower 
ranks.  It  would  not  suffer  it  in  bishops,  who  were 
to  be  chosen  from  the  monasteries.  And  in  the 
West  it  should  be  observed  that  orders  were  not 
conferred  till  the  age  of  thirty  and  upwards ;  that 
various  Councils  appealed  to  Nicaea  on  behalf  of  a 
milder  rule :  and  that,  as  the  learned  Thomassinus 
expresses  himself,  the  earlier  practice  had  been 
undecided  or  fluctuating.  Even  in  the  eighth 
century  Paul  I.  rebuked,  and  was  on  the  point  of 
deposing,  the  Archbishop  of  Ravenna  for  living 
publicly  with  his  wife.  Nicholas  I.  renewed  the 
laws  of  his  predecessors,  and  was  charged  by  Photius 
with  infringing  the  Nicene  Canons  on  this  very 
account.  Children  born  after  their  father's  ordination 
were  reckoned  illegitimate  or  even  slaves ;  but  the 
repeated  injunctions  of  Popes  and  Councils  prove  that 
the  rule  of  celibacy  had  fallen  into  disfavour  almost 
everywhere  during  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh 
centuries.  When  Gregory  began  his  reform,  says 
Montalembert,  "  the  whole  clergy,  with  the  exception 
of  the  monks,  and  of  certain  bishops  and  priests 
quoted  as  marvels,  lived  in  permanent  and  systematic 
concubinage." 

Such  is  the  witness,  such  the  language,  of  Peter 
Damiani,  who  in  this  long  and  sanguinary  contest 
played  the  part  of  St.  Jerome  against  Vigilantius, 
with  a  strength  of  resolution,  and,  it  must  be  added, 
a  coarseness  of  terms,  not  to  be  imagined  by  those 
who  have  never  studied  his  writings.  Himself  rescued 
and  brought  up  by  a  priest's  consort,  the  kindest 
return  he  could  make,  after  his  monk's  profession, 


DISORDERS    OF  MARRIED    CLERGY  211 

was  to  set  the  clergy  free  from  these  dangerous  help- 
meets. And  with  the  marriage  of  ecclesiastics  cer- 
tainly were  bound  up  the  sale,  the  transference,  the 
secularising  of  benefices.  Priests  and  deacons,  said 
Desiderius,  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  are  not  ashamed 
to  marry  and  leave  children  as  heirs  in  their  wills. 
What  could  they  bequeath  except  what  they  had 
plundered  ?  "  These  women,"  said  Atto  of  Vercelli 
in  956,  "  rule  the  house,  and  when  master  is  dead, 
inherit  what  the  priest  has  left  of  the  Church's  goods 
and  the  alms  given  by  the  faithful."  The  people  sold 
the  election  to  livings,  continues  Desiderius,  the  priests 
sold  the  consecration  and  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  would  be  easier,  exclaimed  Damiani,  to  turn  the 
heart  of  Judas  than  to  convert  a  Bishop — heretic 
and  robber  as  he  is — from  his  poisonous  heresy. 
Bishops,  even  in  Rome,  kept  their  concubines  and 
called  them  openly  their  wives.  In  1040,  says 
Bonizo,  it  would  have  been  hard  to  find  in  the  Eternal 
City  a  priest  that  was  neither  illiterate,  nor  simoniacal, 
nor  living  in  disorder. 

Monks  had  at  first  been  laymen,  solitaries  or 
united  in  a  common  life,  but  by  rule  they  were  "  con- 
tinent," that  is  to  say,  unmarried.  Since  the  resur- 
rection which  began  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth 
century,  their  great  leaders  had  been  ousting  the 
wedded  secular  canons  and  enforcing  the  strict 
Western  discipline,  as  we  may  read  in  the  trials  and 
triumphs  of  Dunstan,  the  English  Abbot.  Never- 
theless, it  is  patent  from  the  large  area  over  which 
opposition  sprang  up,  from  Apulia  to  Ireland,  that 
the  clergy  in  general  neither  observed  the  law  nor 


212  HENRY  IV,   AT  CANOSSA 

wished  it  to  bind  them.  Under  Leo  IX.,  and  in  his 
despite,  French  bishops  were  publicly  married,  pre- 
lates of  great  Sees  like  Rouen,  of  smaller  ones,  like 
Le  Mans  and  Quimper.  In  1059,  Damiani  reproaches 
Annibert  of  Turin  for  allowing  his  clergy  to  take 
wives.  Long  before  this,  St.  Boniface  had  brought  a 
similar  charge  against  the  Germans  ;  and  Leo  VII. 
wrote  to  Gerard,  Archbishop  in  Bavaria,  "It  is 
deplorable  that  the  priests  in  your  country  are 
openly  married  and  ask  to  have  their  sons  ordained." 
St.  Adalbert  gave  up  his  Bishopric  of  Prague  because 
he  could  not  endure  a  clergy  which  declined  to  be 
celibate  and  a  nobility  which  was  polygamous. 
Evidence  to  the  like  effect  could  be  multiplied  ;  but 
there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  clergy  and  bishops, 
left  to  their  own  devices,  would  have  abrogated  the 
law  and  converted  their  benefices  into  hereditary 
fiefs,  on  the  pattern  set  them  by  their  secular 
neighbours. 

Of  this  movement  the  centre  was  Milan,  never  at 
rest  under  the  Roman  supremacy^  as  proud  of  St. 
Ambrose  as  though  he  had  been  an  Apostle.  Ruined 
by  Attila,  greatly  restored  under  Archbishop  Anspert, 
the  city  flourished  when  Pavia  decayed,  and  in  1018 
Heribert  governed  it  with  a  magnificent  liberality,  a 
show  of  learning,  and  a  resolution  of  character,  which 
made  him  the  foremost  prelate  in  Italy.  He  crowned 
Conrad  II.,  and  himself  joined  in  the  Emperor's 
Burgundian  campaign.  But  he  was  something  of  a 
tyrant  and  his  people  rebelled ;  Milan  underwent  a 
siege  at  the  hands  of  Conrad.  The  Archbishop  de- 
feated his  Emperor  ;  he  set  up  the  famous  Carroccio  ; 


TUMULTS   AT   MILAN  2I3 

he  gave  Milan  freedom,  but  made  it  amenable  to  his 
own  government.  The  Milanese,  when  Heribert  died, 
invoked  him  as  a  Saint ;  yet  he  had  been  married  to 
Useria ;  and  on  the  election  of  Guido,  the  long- 
expected  conflict  broke  out  between  reformers  and 
Epicureans  (1057). 

These  turmoils  in  the  Italian  cities  of  the  Middle 
Age  cannot  fail  to  remind  us  of  similar,  but  hardly- 
more  violent,  scenes  in  the  small  republics  of  Greece. 
They  did,  in  fact,  spring  from  causes  economic  as  well 
as  political,  and  religion  was  often  a  mere  pretext. 
Guido's  rival,  Anselm  of  Badoagia,  could  influence  the 
vavasours,  or  base  tenants,  the  "  Minores,"  as  they  were 
termed  elsewhere,  whose  debts  burdened  them,  and 
who  felt  keenly  the  impositions  laid  on  their  shoulders 
by  the  Archbishop,  his  nobles,  and  his  ministers. 
The  monks  would  side  with  a  discontented,  suffering 
multitude.  Gregory  VII.  always  speaks  as  the 
champion  of  the  down-trodden.  And  a  sincere  desire 
to  end  abuses  may  have  actuated  Landulf,the  eloquent, 
high-born  preacher,  and  Ariald,  the  man  in  the  market- 
place, who  were  Anselm's  lieutenants.  The  reformers 
appealed  to  authority,  the  relaxed  to  ancient  Canons  ; 
and  both  parties  to  St.  Ambrose.  But  Ariald  drove 
the  married  clergy  out  of  church.  They  were  for- 
cibly separated  from  their  partners.  Guido,  on 
the  other  hand,  held  a  Council  at  Novara,  and 
dared  to  excommunicate  the  leaders  of  reform. 
He  brought  down  on  himself  (1059)  Peter 
Damiani,  now  a  Cardinal,  with  Anselm  of  Lucca, 
commissioned  by  Nicholas  II.  to  quell  these  dis- 
orders.    Now  the  people  turned  again  ;  they  would 


214  HENRY  IV.   AT  CANOSSA 

not  see  their  Archbishop  humbled  in  presence  of  a 
Legate.  But  Damiani  faced  them  with  supreme 
daring ;  he  argued  for  the  Roman  claims,  which  they 
were  not  prepared  to  deny ;  and  he  compelled  Guido 
as  well  as  his  clergy  to  take  a  solemn  oath  against 
simony  and  concubinage,  which  was  equivalent  in 
the  circumstances  to  a  general  confession  of  guilt. 

Nor  was  that  all.  In  1059  Nicholas  II. — we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  Hildebrand  was  his  adviser — 
renewed  the  decrees  which  condemned  these  evils, 
and  Guido  signed  them  again.  But  neither  he  nor 
any  Lombard  Bishop  ventured  on  publishing  them. 
Anselm  became  Pope ;  the  episode  of  Cadalus  fol- 
lowed ;  Landulf  died,  and  his  brother  Herlembald 
stepped  into  the  office  of  agitator.  He  was  a  demo- 
crat to  whom  Alexander  II.  sent  a  sacred  banner, 
Hildebrand  urging  this  consecration  of  the  popular 
cause  which  implied  the  triumph  of  celibacy.  Pass  a 
hundred  years,  and  the  Lombard  League  will  vindi- 
cate his  foreboding  that  the  Free  Cities  would 
uphold  the  Church,  even  unto  blood.  Herlembald 
governed  Milan  ;  Ariald  got  the  Archbishop  deposed  ; 
but  he  was  imprudent  enough  to  substitute  Roman 
uses  for  the  Ambrosian,  and  it  cost  him  his  life. 
Guido  had  returned.  Ariald  escaped  to  Legnano  ; 
he  was  captured  by  the  retainers  of  Oliva,  the  Arch- 
bishop's niece,  taken  to  an  island  in  the  Lago  Mag- 
giore,  tortured,  mutilated,  murdered  (1066).  Still 
Herlembald  held  the  city  ;  he  kept  Guido  in  prison, 
defied  the  Imperial  Court,  and  was  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Gregory  VII.  when  a  new  insurrection 
struck  him  dead  and  trampled  on  his  sacred  banner. 


CELIBACY    TRIUMPHS  21  5 

Ariald  and  Herlembald  were  canonised ;  Milan 
yielded  outwardly  to  the  stringent  discipline  of 
reform  ;  but  in  1098  its  clergy  were  handing  down 
as  of  old  their  benefices  to  children  born  in  the 
sanctuary  ;  and  Cremona,  Piacenza,  Pavia,  Padua,  ex- 
hibited the  fiercest  dissensions  between  the  defenders 
of  licence  and  the  partisans  of  law. 

This  one  sample  may  suffice.  We  need  not  dwell 
on  the  strife  at  Florence,  the  virtues  of  St.  John 
Gualbert,  the  charges  against  Bishop  Peter,  the 
victorious  ordeal  of  his  opponent,  Peter  Igneus. 
Everywhere,  law  and  piety,  seconded  by  popular 
zeal,  overcame  the  opposition  of  prelates  who  did 
not  know  what  principles  to  rely  upon  when  they 
ran  counter  to  the  ideas  of  the  age.  All  owned 
monasticism  to  be  the  highest  Christian  aim ;  how,  then, 
could  bishops  or  clergy  live  as  though  merely  ordained 
laymen?  Celibacy  was  now  sure  of  its  triumph. 
Not  so  the  war  against  simony,  or  the  attempt  to 
wrest  from  secular  hands  privileges  and  properties,  a 
half  or  a  third  of  whole  kingdoms,  which  had  been 
time  out  of  mind  at  their  disposal. 

Neither  of  the  parties  to  this  quarrel  can  have 
dreamt  that  it  would  continue  through  vicissitudes 
of  shame,  triumph,  and  defeat,  a  long  three  hundred 
years,  reckoning  from  Henry  IV.'s  accession  to 
Charles  IV.'s  Golden  Bull,  which  at  last  divided 
the  Empire  from  the  Papacy  (1056-1356).  Still  less 
did  they  anticipate  its  consequences  to  themselves. 
Both  institutions,  it  must  be  remarked,  stood  above 
or  outside  the  nations  of  Europe  considered  in  a 
tribal  or  territorial  sense.     If  the  Papacy  controlled 


2l6  HENRY  IV,   AT   CANOSSA 

a  Spiritual  society,  the  Empire  was  often  little 
more  than  a  political  fiction.  In  both  the  ruling 
power  was  influence,  not  the  force  of  arms,  but  an 
acknowledged  yet  always  resisted  law,  and  the 
personal  authority  of  the  ruler.  Both  again  were 
elective  monarchies,  liable  to  revolution  at  every 
demise  of  crown  or  tiara.  They  were  not  only 
exposed  to  the  intrigues,  the  corruption,  the 
sordid  or  ambitious  views  of  possible  candidates, 
but,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  French  and  American 
systems  which  resemble  them,  were  almost  certain 
to  be  wielded  by  average  men  chosen  to  keep  out 
the  more  daring  spirits.  By  a  singular  coinci- 
dence, indeed,  the  Empire  was  now  to  become  a 
sort  of  family  possession,  the  Papacy  to  move  on 
definite  lines  under  its  monastic  Pontiffs,  for  a 
hundred  years  and  more.  Nevertheless,  no  Emperor 
succeeded  in  making  the  crown  hereditary  until  the 
brunt  of  this  battle  was  over.  And  the  immediate 
successors  of  Gregory  VII.  inherited  his  policy 
rather  than  his  genius. 

Gregory  felt  unbounded  confidence  in  the  "  Divine 
Idea  "  of  Church  and  Hierarchy,  of  monks'  vows  and 
religious  profession,  which  from  youth  up  he  had 
cherished.  As  legate  in  France,  under  Victor  II.,  he 
confronted  the  hostile  multitude  of  prelates  ;  wrought 
upon  their  conscience  by  miracle,  as  William  of 
Malmesbury  tells  us  ;  and  saw  forty-five  bishops  and 
twenty-seven  other  dignitaries  confess  their  guilt  and 
lay  down  the  sacred  trusts  which  they  had  bought. 
In  Damiani's  language,  he  had  been  "  Lord  of  the 
Pope "  ;    or   as    Bishop    Benzon,   a   Simonian,   cried 


PORTRAIT   OF  HENRY  21/ 

aloud,  he  "kept  Pope  Nicholas  like  an  ass  in  a  stable," 
binding  the  wretched  man  by  oath  to  do  his  will — a 
will,  remarks  Chavard,  of  marble  and  iron,  which 
could  not  be  broken.  In  all  things,  says  the  bio- 
grapher of  St.  John  Gualbert,  he  heard  and  defended 
the  monks.  Thus  on  one  side  stood  the  Pope,  almost 
alone  in  the  Hierarchy,  relying  upon  the  monastic 
orders  and  the  popular  enthusiasm  ;  on  the  other, 
bishops,  nobles,  courtiers,  a«Ki  married  clergy  looked 
to  young  Henry  IV.  as  their  champion.  To  him  in 
exchange  for  freedom  as  against  the  Hildebrandine 
laws,  they  surrendered  the  Church  estates,  the  right 
of  election  to  benefices  great  and  small,  the  immunities 
of  cloister,  fief,  and  Imperial  city.  In  a  contest  so 
unequal  it  did  not  seem  possible  that  Gregory  should 
win. 

Henry  IV.,  as  described  by  historians,  was  a 
Teuton,  with  the  large  limbs,  blue  eyes,  flaxen  hair, 
and  truculent  temper  of  his  race  ;  bold,  enterprising, 
and  subject  to  fits  of  passion  ;  "  a  man,"  says  Bonizo, 
"of  deep  counsel  and  remarkable  sagacity."  His 
bringing  up  had  not  been  wise.  The  Empress  Agnes 
spoilt  him.  Hanno,  if  a  Saint,  frightened  and  brow- 
beat the  lad  whom  he  had  kidnapped.  Adalbert  of 
Bremen,  according  to  his  enemies,  suffered  Henry  to 
run  wild  at  a  critical  period  among  evil  companions, 
who  gave  to  the  Court  at  Goslar  a  scandalous  name. 
These,  however,  were  the  "  King's  friends,"  to  be 
rewarded  with  great  bishoprics  and  the  wealthiest 
abbeys  in  German  lands.  When  the  Saxons  revolted 
they  charged  upon  Henry  crimes  too  enormous  for 
belief;  yet  he  never  broke  loose  from  the  religious 


21$  HENRY  IV.   AT  CAN  OSS  A 

creed  of  his  childhood.  Among  the  strange 
characteristics  of  this  man  we  must  reckon  his  moods 
of  repentance,  his  remorse  after  violent  and  out- 
rageous behaviour,  his  tears  and  submission  to  those 
whom  he  had  been  persecuting  to  the  death.  He  is 
called  passionate,  cunning,  treacherous  ;  the  story 
will  prove  either  that  he  was  unstable,  or  that  in  the 
conditions  of  the  time  no  basis  of  purely  secular 
independence  could  be  discovered,  on  which  to  with- 
stand the  authority  exercised  by  a  Pope  in  God's 
name. 

June,  1073,  the  very  day  after  Gregory  had  been 
chosen,  saw  the  Saxon  chieftains  revolt.  Their  cry 
went,  "  For  God's  Church,  Christian  Faith,  our  own 
Freedom ! "  Henry  was  asked  to  send  away  his 
youthful  counsellors,  to  quit  his  concubines,  to  take 
back  the  wife  whom  he  had  repudiated,  to  dismantle 
the  forts  by  which  he  quelled  these  princes.  Among 
his  friends  were  the  Archbishop  of  Bremen,  Liemar, 
and  the  Bishops  of  Zeitz  and  Osnaburg.  They  were 
driven  into  exile.  Thuringia  broke  into  open  war. 
Henry  lost  his  treasures,  fled  into  hiding  ;  then  with 
the  help  of  his  prelates  and  the  Rhine  Princes  he 
gained  a  battle  at  Hohenburg  (1075).  In  adversity, 
when  Gregory  admonished  him,  the  Emperor  con- 
fessed to  every  charge — incontinence,  simony,  invasion 
of  Church  property ;  he  would  repent  and  amend. 
Messengers  came  from  Rome  demanding  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  promise.  Let  him  call  a  Council,  degrade 
the  simoniacal  prelates.  He  consented.  There  was 
a  frightful  tumult  at  Cologne,  perhaps  in  consequence; 
Hanno  just  escaped  with  his  life,  the  city  underwent 


GREGORY  ABOLISHES  INVESTITURE  219 

horrible  disorders.  Germany  was  rent  into  factions 
At  Erfurt  where  Siegfried  of  Mayence  presided 
when  he  displayed  the  Roman  enactments,  the  clergy, 
almost  all  married,  rose  against  him,  and  threatened 
the  legate  in  such  terms  that  he  fled,  escorted  by  his 
own  troop  of  soldiers.  Hereupon  followed  a  synod 
at  Rome,  and  the  Pope,  in  one  peremptory  decree, 
abolished  the  whole  right  of  investiture ;  to  grant  or 
to  accept  it  was  the  sin  of  idolatry,  its  punishment 
was  interdict  (February,  1075). 

This  might  be  reform  ;  it  was  certainly  revolution. 
While  no  one  pretended  that  the  sale  of  livings  could 
be  anything  but  a  sin,  investiture  with  ring  and  staff 
had  been  practised  by  the  holiest  laymen  with  the 
Church's  consent  or  toleration.  Gregory  abrogated  a 
long-standing  usage  ;  he  did  not  substitute  any  cere- 
mony by  which  the  Civil  Power  was  recognised.  Not 
only  the  person,  but  the  property,  of  every  cleric  thus 
became  exempt  from  secular  burdens.  While  the  Pope 
could  dispose  of  bishoprics  and  their  wealth,  of 
parishes  and  their  endowments,  nay  of  abbeys  and 
their  treasures — as  was  shown  by  Stephen  IX.  in 
regard  to  Monte  Cassino,  by  the  crusading  Pontiffs 
in  regard  to  all  Christendom — it  might  be  asked  in 
what  manner  King  or  Emperor  could  deal  with  con- 
tumacious prelates,  or  with  ecclesiastical  bodies  which 
declined  to  share  in  the  dangers  and  liabilities  of  the 
common  government.  This  question,  under  various 
crude  or  debatable  forms,  was  to  give  rise  to  Consti- 
tutions of  Clarendon,  Statutes  of  Mortmain,  Premunire 
and  Provisors,  and  to  precipitate  a  crisis  in  the  days  of 
Philip  the  P'air  and  Boniface  VIII.,  in  the  course  of 


220  HENRY  IV.    AT  CANOSSA 

which  the  Medieval  Papacy,  inaugurated  by  Gregory 
at  this  moment,  should  complete  one  great  cycle  of 
its  development  and  a  new  era  begin.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  affirm  that  this  double  dispute,  touching  the 
marriage  of  the  clergy  and  the  immunities  of  their 
estate,  which  Henry  IV.  took  up  in  defiance  of  the 
monk  Hildebrand,  is  the  same  as  that  which  in  15 17 
was  baptized  with  the  name  of  the  Reformation.  At 
Erfurt  a  yet  unconscious  Protestant  Germany  had 
risen  up  against  Rome.  No  sooner  had  Gregory 
thrown  down  the  gauntlet  in  his  Lateran  Synod,  than 
this  entire  party  went  over  to  the  Emperor. 

Had  Gregory  been  no  more  than  a  politician, 
he  would  have  devised  some  way  of  hindering  that 
alliance.  But  he  was  what  men  of  the  world  call 
a  fanatic,  and  his  Church  has  declared  him  to  be 
a  Saint.  He  struck  at  high  and  low,  prince  and 
prelate,  with  undaunted  resolution.  The  whole 
German  Church  was  leagued  against  him.  In 
December,  1075,  Hanno  of  Cologne  vanished  from 
the  scene.  The  Saxon  Bishops,  his  partisans,  had 
been  conquered  with  their  brother-nobles.  Siegfried 
of  Mayence  was  a  reed  shaken  by  the  wind.  In  his 
Roman  Council  Gregory  had  suspended  from  office 
a  crowd  of  bishops,  including  Liemar  of  Bremen,  and 
the  occupants  of  Strasburg,  Spires,  Bamberg,  Pavia, 
Turin,  and  Lausanne.  When  Altman  of  Passau  read 
from  the  pulpit  Gregory's  decree  against  clerical 
marriage,  he  was  almost  torn  in  pieces  by  the  furious 
rabble.  At  Mayence  the  like  tumults  were  renewed  ; 
neither  Siegfried  nor  the  Papal  Legate  could  persuade 
the  clergy  to  obey.     The  law  remained  a  dead  letter. 


CENCI  SEIZES    THE   POPE  221 

Except  very  few — it  is  the  Pope's  lament — none  of 
thgJijshops  exerted  jhemsel yes  to  stamp^out  the  evil 
pfUjmony,  or  to  insist  on  their  priests  leading  a  single 
life.  Henry  might  assume  that  in  defying  the 
Roman  authority  he  would  have  the  world  at  his 
back. 

And  he  was  a  victor  in  arms  at  twenty-three, 
while  the  Pope  seemed  defenceless,  worn  down  with 
age  and  trouble.  The  Normans,  for  sins  of  their  own, 
lay  under  interdict.  Nor  was  Rome  itself — the 
patrician,  turbulent  Rome,  which  never  loved  the 
clergy — favourable  to  the  monk  from  the  Aventine. 
Guibert,  soon  to  be  Antipope,  may  have  stirred  up 
old  feuds,  if  they  did  not  blaze  out  unprovoked. 
What  we  know  is  that  on  Christmas  Eve,  1075,  in 
wild  weather,  as  the  Pope  was  celebrating  Mass  in 
St.  Mary  Major's,  Cenci,  of  the  House  of  Tusculum, 
a  pardoned  traitor,  seized  Gregory,  wounded  him, 
and  thrust  him  into  the  tower  on  the  Via  Sacra, 
bleeding  and  stripped  of  his  sacred  vestments.  The 
mingling  of  sacrilege  and  murder  was  then,  as  long 
afterwards,  peculiarly  Italian.  When  day  broke,  the 
people  assaulted  Cenci's  stronghold  and  rescued 
Gregory,  who  forgave  this  atrocious  ruffian  in  mild 
terms.  Such  were  the  "  weapons  of  lowliness  "  with 
which,  as  he  told  the  Venetians,  he  meant  to  conquer. 
But  to  Henry  he  turned  a  sharper  edge ;  his  words 
were  very  swords.  Within  a  ^^w  days  he  issued 
(January,  1076)  a  declaration  of  the  Papal  right  to 
judge  kings  for  their  offences  ;  he  rebuked  the  royal 
appointments  to  Milan  and  Spoleto ;  he  insisted  on 
the  discipline  of  celibacy,  and  he  cited  the  Emperor, 


222  HENRY  IV.   AT  CANOSSA 

under  threat  of  excommunication,  to  appear  on 
February  22nd  in  Rome  before  a  Church  tribunal. 
Henry  dared  not  risk  his  crown  on  the  adventure. 
At  once  he  summoned  his  Bishops  to  meet  at  Worms 
on  the  Sunday  of  Septuagesima.  His  intention  was 
to  depose  Gregory  before  he  should  himself  be 
deposed.     The   timorous    Siegfried    was    president ; 


HENRY    IV.,    EMPEROR   A.D.    IO76. 

[From  a  print  in  the  British  Museum.) 

Cardinal  Hugo,  a  sycophant  and  simoniac,  who  had 
been  the  first  to  acclaim  Hildebrand  as  Pope,  now 
stepped  forward  and  charged  him  with  crimes  of  the 
deepest  dye,  but  offered  no  evidence.  A  form  of 
renunciation  was  drawn  up,  and  every  Bishop  com- 
pelled to  sign  it.  Henry  sent  the  decree  to  Rome 
with  a  letter  of  studied  insult,  in  which  he  maintained 


GREGORY  DEPOSES    THE   EMPEROR  223 

that  the  Emperor  could  be  unmade  for  no  crime  save 
apostasy.  He  did  not  perceive  in  his  admission  that 
the  Pope  alone  could  judge  who  was,  or  was  not,  an 
apostate.  His  letter  concluded :  "  I,  Henry,  by  the 
grace  of  God  King,  with  all  the  Bishops  of  my  king- 
dom, cry  to  thee,  '  Down,  down  ! '  " 

This  message  was  carried  to  Gregory  sitting  among 
his  ministers  in  the  Lateran,  by  a  priest  of  Parma, 
Roland.  Tumult  followed  its  delivery  ;  but  the  Pope 
read  it  aloud  in  his  self-controlled  way,  pronounced 
a  skilful  defence  of  his  action,  and  next  morning 
launched  the  great  anathema.  In  his  audience  sat 
the  Empress  Agnes,  Henry's  mother.  He  had 
already  received  letters  of  retractation  from  many  who 
took  part  in  the  Synods  of  Worms  and  Piacenza. 
Now,  by  the  authority  of  St.  Peter,  in  the  name  of 
the  Almighty,  he  proceeded  to  deprive  Henry  of  the 
whole  government  over  Germany  and  Italy.  He 
released  all  Christians  from  the  oaths  they  had  sworn 
or  might  hereafter  swear  to  him,  and  forbade  them  to 
yield  him  obedience  henceforth.  He  bound  the  King 
in  spiritual  chains  that  all  nations  might  know  and 
acknowledge  Peter  to  be  the  rock  on  which  the 
Church  was  built  by  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God. 

It  was  a  deed  without  example,  but  a  master- 
stroke. Thirty  years  had  passed  since  Henry's 
father  at  Sutri  put  down  three  Popes  at  once  from 
their  pride  of  place.  Now  the  world  looked  on  at  a 
counter-revolution  in  which  the  spiritual  power  did 
as  it  chose  with  the  temporal  ;  not  only  did  the  law 
of  the  Roman  Pontiffs  obtain  wider  sway  than  the 


224  HENRY  IV.    AT   CANOSSA 

law  of  ancient  Emperors — which  was  Gregory's  boast 
to  the  King  of  Denmark — but  the  successor  of 
Charlemagne  must  become  its  humble  minister,  or 
his  crown  was  forfeit.  Henry  heard  the  sentence 
and  felt  dismay.  One  of  his  chief  advisers,  William 
of  Utrecht,  perished  miserably.  Defection  had  begun 
among  the  bishops  ;  Suabia,  Bavaria,  could  not  be 
trusted  ;  some  of  the  Saxon  leaders  had  gained  their 
freedom  ;  at  Mayence  opposition  raised  its  voice  ; 
Udo,  Archbishop  of  Treves,  broke  away  to  Gregory  ; 
and  the  King,  losing  himself  in  wild  enterprises,  failed 
in  Saxony  and  retreated  with  disgrace  to  the  Rhine. 
Six  months  had  sufficed  to  ruin  all  his  devices. 

Meanwhile,  Gregory  exhorted  him  to  repentance, 
but  did  not  cease  to  remind  the  Germans  that  if  he 
were  contumacious,  on  them  lay  the  burden  of  choos- 
ing an  Emperor.  At  Tribur,  near  Darmstadt,  a  Diet, 
or  as  we  now  say,  the  Reichstag,  was  held.  Three 
candidates  appeared.  Henry,  with  a  handful  of 
followers,  lingered  at  Oppenheim  across  the  river. 
During  seven  days  the  Diet  took  cognisance  of  his 
high  crimes  and  misdemeanours,  his  private  vices,  his 
elevation  of  base-born  men  to  responsible  station,  his 
distrust  of  the  nobles,  and  his  assaults  upon  churches 
and  monasteries — these  were  counts  of  an  indictment 
from  which  we  gather  that  the  feudal  chiefs,  lay  or 
ecclesiastical,  would  have  resisted  a  Patriot  King  as 
fiercely  as  they  did  a  tyrannical  Emperor.  And  he, 
quitting  the  semblance  of  dignity,  flung  himself  on 
the  ground  before  them.  He  offered  any  terms  short 
of  abdication.  His  offer  was  rejected.  The  wretched 
Siegfried  now  thought  of  crossing  the  Rhine,  attack- 


PASSAGE    OF  MONT   CENIS  225 

ing  Henry  in  person,  and  ending  the  war  at  a  blow. 
But  the  Imperial  bands  confronted  him,  and  this 
ignominy  was  spared  the  fallen  Prince.  Hard  con- 
ditions, such  as  the  Middle .  Ages  had  never  heard 
before,  were  exacted  from  him.  At  next  Candlemas 
Gregory  intended  to  hold  his  court  in  Augsburg. 
Let  him  decide  the  whole  affair,  said  these  German 
oligarchs,  who  played  off  one  authority  against 
another,  and  were  only  not  fickle  because  they  looked 
always  to  their  own  advantage.  Till  then  let  the 
King  disband  his  troops,  send  away  his  excommuni- 
cated Privy  Council,  withdraw  to  Spires,  and  live 
there  with  no  state  of  royalty.  To  this  extra- 
ordinary demand  Henry  submitted.  Gregory  was 
virtual  sovereign  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

A  terrible  winter  set  in  ;  from  November  to  April 
the  Rhine  was  frozen  ;  his  enemies,  the  Dukes  of 
Bavaria  and  Carinthia,  watched  the  passes  of  the 
Alps  lest  Henry  should  steal  a  march  on  them  and 
make  his  own  terms  with  the  Pope,  who  was  moving 
towards  Mantua.  With  his  wife  and  child,  attended 
by  one  servant,  the  unhappy  young  man  turned  into 
Burgundy,  bought  from  his  kindred  of  Savoy  the 
passage  over  Mont  Cenis,  and  through  ways  cut 
by  hatchets  out  of  the  frozen  snow,  not  without 
accidents,  he  came  down  headlong  into  Lombardy. 
He  was  on  the  road  to  Canossa. 

Among  friends  now  of  the  Imperial  cause  he  found 
himself ;  a  great  army  sprang  up  to  meet  him  ;  the 
deprived  prelates,  the  married  clergy  asked,  Would 
he  not  depose  Hildebrand  ?  That  undaunted  yet 
wary    pilgrim    had    turned    back    from    Mantua    on 

i6 


226  HENRY  IV.    At   CANOSSA 

hearing  this  news  and  taken  up  his  quarters  in 
Canossa,  twenty  miles  south-east  of  Parma,  the 
strong  fortress  where  Adelaide,  Queen  of  Italy,  once 
found  shelter.  It  belonged  now  to  Matilda,  the 
saintly  Amazon  who  ruled  over  Tuscany  and  was 
the  devoted  friend  of  the  Pope.  Thither  came  a 
host  of  penitents,  German  bishops,  German  nobles, 
barefoot,  in  mourning,  to  beg  absolution.  It  was 
given  with  consummate  kindness.  Matilda  and 
Hugh  of  Cluny  interceded  for  the  chief  criminal. 
Gregory  referred  him  to  the  approaching  Diet  of 
Augsburg.  They  pleaded  for  a  speedier  reconcilia- 
tion. "  Then,"  said  the  Pontiff,  "  let  him  put  into 
my  hands  his  crown  and  sceptre,  and  confess  himself 
an  unworthy  King."  On  January  25,  1076,  Feast  of  ^ 
the  Conversion  of  St.  Paul,  Henry  was  admitted 
within  the  precincts  of  the  Castle.  In  deep  snow  he 
stood  there,  the  tall,  fair  German,  stripped  to  his 
shirt,  fasting  and  barefoot.  That  day  passed,  and  a 
second,  in  this  ghostly  silence,  but  Gregory  from 
within  gave  no  sign  that  he  knew  of  Henry's  humilia- 
tion. A  third  ended  in  like  manner.  Was  it  the 
severity  of  an  Apostle  or  the  arrogance  of  a  tyrant 
which  the  Pope  displayed  ?  At  length,  in  the  chapel 
of  St.  Nicholas,  Henry  fell  down  at  Matilda's  feet 
and  implored  her  intercession.  Then  Gregory 
suffered  him  to  draw  near.  They  met — a  strange 
contrast,  youth  and  age,  the  Emperor  in  his  single 
white  garment  trembling,  the  Pope  with  his  red 
mantle  about  him,  slight,  small,  grey-haired,  inflexible 
as  death.     The  Emperor  was  conquered. 

Terms  as  stringent  as  they  could  be  made,  with 


GREGORY    TRIUMPHS 


227 


compurgators  to  show  that  Henry  was  not  to  be 
trusted ;  and  to  crown  all,  the  fearful  adjuration  which 
Gregory  put  upon  him,  holding  the  Host  in  his  right 
hand,  "  May  God  strike  me  if  I  am  guilty  of  the 
crimes  alleged  against  me  !  Do  thou,  my  son,  do 
as  I  have  done.  Avouch  thy  innocence  on  the  Lord's 
body."  Conscious  of  many  crimes,  he  shrank  in 
terror  ;  but  the  absolution  had  been  given  ;  Henry 
was  Emperor  again.  His  Lombards  at  the  gates 
heard  this  announcement  with  angry  contempt  ;  they 
cried  out  that  his  son  should  be  their  King,  that 
Gregory  was  a  son  of  Belial.  When  the  humbled 
Teuton  quitted  Canossa  none  would  greet  him  or 
so  much  as  look  his  way,  and  he  passed  on  to  Reggio 
in  a  cloud  of  grief,  disowned  by  friends,  a  laughing- 
stock to  enemies.  Such  a  day  as  Canossa  the  world 
would  never  see  a  second  time.^ 


XV 


NORMANS,   CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 


(1076-II23) 


It  is  the  year  1083.  From  his  snow-penance 
Henry  had  taken  an  undying  hatred  to  Hildebrand. 
Though  absolved,  he  had  not  been  able  to  prevent 
the  election  of  an  Anti-emperor,  Rudolph  of  Suabia, 
whom  let  not  the  careless  reader  confound  with 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  two  centuries  later.  War  was 
raging,  with  devastation  on  a  grand  scale  and  blood- 
shed less  than  we  might  imagine,  but  a  horrible 
mixture  of  civil  and  religious  broils.  Rudolph  was 
nearly  finished,  and  Gregory's  new  thunderbolts 
against  the  Franconian  Emperor  did  not  help  the 
Suabian,  to  whom  he  perhaps  sent  a  crown  from  St. 
Peter.  At  Mayence  and  Brixen  the  Pope  was 
deposed.  Guibert,  Italian  Chancellor,  Archbishop 
of  Ravenna,  usurped  his  place  and  for  a  long  twenty 
years  fought  and  wandered  as  Clement  III.  No 
serious  historian  believes  the  calumnies  which  were 
spread   abroad  against  Gregory.     That  he  was  true 


A 


CONFLAGRATIOSr   OF  ROME  229 

Pope  every  one  knew.  But  in  the  battle  of  the 
Elster,  while  Henry  suffered  a  re^rse  at  the  hands 
of  the  Saxons,  Rudolph  was  jH^Hk^'^  the  spring  of 
1081  Henry  crossed  the  Alp^J^HKiped  under  the 
walls  of  Rome,  and  began  a  siege  that  lasted  amid 
fevers,  alarms,  and  desultory  fighting  some  three 
years  off  and  on.  Accident  at  length  gave  him  the 
Leonine  City,  but  Gregory  was  secure  in  St.  Angelo. 
Negotiations  led  to  no  result.  The  Emperor  pressed 
on  the  siege  ;  at  Christmas,  thanks  to  bribery,  the 
Romans  opened  their  gates.  Henry  held  the  Lateran 
as  well  as  St.  Peter's.  His  Antipope  was  consecrated, 
himself  crowned  on  Easter  Day,  1083,  by  Clement. 
Canossa  might  seem  to  be  revenged. 

Now  came  Desiderius,  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino, 
like  the  messenger  in  a  Greek  tragedy,  to  announce 
that  Robert  Guiscard  was  approaching  with  six 
thousand  knights  and  thirty  thousand  foot.  Henry 
could  not  stay  to  meet  him.  Taking  hostages  and 
breaking  down  some  of  the  walls,  he  fled  towards 
Citta  Castellana.  Three  days  afterwards,  up  marched 
the  motley  but  formidable  host,  not  only  Normans 
but  Saracens,  all  freebooters,  on  fire  with  lust  of 
plunder  and  excitement.  They  carried  the  gate  of 
San  Lorenzo  ;.they  released  the  Pope  and  conducted 
him  to  the  Lateran.  But  in  two  days  the  Roman 
populace  broke  upon  the  barbarians  as  they  were 
feasting,  and  attempted  a  massacre.  Into  these 
narrow  streets  the  Normans  urged  their  cavalry  ;  it 
was  a  fight  from  house  to  house,  and  the  natives  were 
getting  the  advantage,  when  Guiscard  uttered  the 
ominous  word  "  Fire  ! "     Instantly,  from   Lateran  to 


I 


230  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 

Capitol,  over  the  regions  which  Nero  had  once  seen 
in  conflagration,  the  flames  rose  up.  Houses  of  wood, 
churches  and  temples  of  marble,  were  consumed  under 
a  red  cloud  of  night.  Inhabited  Rome,  Palatine, 
Esquiline,  Quirinal  took  fire,  blazed  up,  and  was 
laid  in  ashes  to  an  accompaniment  of  murder,  rape, 
robbery,  and  all  the  unspeakable  pollutions  which 
heathen  Saracen,  and  scarcely  less  heathen  Norman, 
now  brought  on  the  Capital  of  the  Christian  World. 
From  that  day  the  region  of  Monti — the  Hills — 
has  been  a  desolation.  When  the  people  began  to 
build  again  they  moved  down  into  the  Field  of  Mars. 
Modern  Rome  dates  from  Robert  Guiscard  and 
Gregory  VH.  and  this  great  fire. 

Thousands  of  Romans  were  sold  in  open  market ; 
the  city,  however,  was  not  safe ;  and  Gregory,  broken- 
hearted, went  in  company  of  Robert  to  Monte  Cassino, 
from  which  he  retired  to  the  stern  seaside  fortress  of 
Salerno.  His  last  letter  to  Beatrice  and  Matilda 
breathes  an  unconquered  spirit.  His  last  words  have 
a  proud  yet  sincere  ring  in  them  :  "  I  have  loved 
justice  and  hated  iniquity,  therefore  I  die  in  exile." 
Roman,  with  a  Virgilian  pathos,  they  were  answered 
by  one  of  his  Cardinals  in  a  more  splendid  strain  : 
"  In  exile.  Holy  Father,  thou  canst  not  die  ;  behold  I 
have  given  thee  the  heathen  for  thine  inheritance  and 
the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  possession." 
Such  was  medieval  Rome,  a  blending  of  Imperial 
haughtiness  with  the  prophetic  visions  of  the  Hebrew 
Testament.  Then  Hildebrand  bowed  his  head  and 
died.  He  lies  in  a  seldom-visited  shrine,  not  far  from 
the  crypt  of  the  Apostle  Matthew,  looking  over  the 


TE.Mi'LL    K^n- 


A.N  ii^.M.Nu:^    AM)    FAUSTINA    IN    THE    FORUM    (ROME), 
SHOWING  TRACES  OF   FIRE,    A.D.    10S3. 


^32  NORMANS,    CROSADES,    INVESTITURES 

blue  Tyrrhenian  waves.  In  death  as  in  Hfe  we  admire 
his  soHtary  grandeur,  his  devotion  to  an  ideal  which 
consumed  him  as  it  subdued  the  conscience  of  his 
century.  But  he  perished  while  the  battle  was  raging 
(May  25,  1085). 

Four  men  he  had  pointed  out  among  whom  to 
choose  a  worthy  successor ;  they  were  all  monks. 
The  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  after  a  year  of  flight 
and  protest,  became  Victor  III.  Robert  Guiscard 
had  followed  Gregory  to  the  tomb  in  a  few  months. 
Desiderius  was  the  friend  of  his  son,  and  known 
already  as  an  adherent  of  the  Norman  policy  which 
would  keep  Emperors  at  a  distance.  "  No  German 
King,"  he  said,  "  should  institute  another  Pope."  But 
his  reluctance  to  wear  the  triple  crown  was  unfeigned. 
With  Jordan's  aid  Guibert  had  been  chased  from  St. 
Peter's,  Victor  installed  ;  but  the  monk-Pope  returned 
to  Cassino,  renewed  at  Beneventum  the  interdict  on 
Henry,  and  died  in  1087.  After  six  months  another 
Gregorian  candidate,  Odo,  Bishop  of  Ostia,  was 
chosen.  A  Benedictine,  noble  by  birth,  French  by 
extraction,  once  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  Henry  IV., 
he  announced  his  election  by  declaring  that  he  would 
walk  in  Gregory's  footsteps.  He  was  destined  to  an 
everlasting  name  as  Urban  II.,  the  Pope  who  preached 
and  consecrated  the  First  Crusade  (1088- 1099). 

The  nations  were  grouping  themselves  "afresh,  and 
large  domains  were  falling  to  the  Roman  See.  On 
the  day  when  Gregory  died,  Alfonso  VI.  of  Castile 
captured  Toledo  from  the  Moors.  Urban  restored 
to  it  the  Metropolitan  dignity  over  Spain,  which  it 
had    long   lost.     He    was    likewise    called    upon    to 


URBAN  IL,    FRENCH  POPE  233 

mediate  between  the  heirs  of  Guiscard  as  suzerain  ; 
to  Roger  he  gave  ApuHa,  to  Bohemond  Tarentum. 
A  daughter  of  Robert's  was  married  to  Raymond, 
Count  of  Barcelona  ;  in  1090  this  Prince  declared 
himself  and  his  possessions  tributary  of  St.  Peter, 
which,  as  the  diploma  proves,  had  become  a  recog- 
nised style  of  independence  from  secular  ])owers. 
Tarragona  was  to  be  held  as  its  peculiar  property 
by  the  Apostolic  See.  Yet,  at  this  very  hour,  Guibert 
occupied  one  half  of  Rome ;  and  while  France 
acknowledged  Urban  with  joy,  the  Empire  was 
divided  and  England  hesitating.  Urban  naturally 
proposed  to  imitate  the  earlier  Pontiffs  who  had 
found  in  the  P^ranks  allies  or  champions  when  the 
Germanic  races  pressed  upon  them.  In  proclaiming 
a  Crusade  he  was  setting  Rome  free  and  holding  up 
Henry  with  his  Antipope  to  the  scorn  of  those 
myriads  who  took  the  cross. 

Before  this  came  to  pass  fortune  had  favoured 
only  to  abandon  Henry.  By  way  of  helping  the 
Papal  interest,  Matilda,  now  past  forty,  consented 
to  marry  Guelph  of  Bavaria,  who  was  eighteen  and  a 
husband  only  in  name  ;  but  this  confederacy  brought 
down  the  Emperor  into  Tuscan  parts.  He  captured 
Mantua  ;  he  was  on  the  point  of  exacting  an  almost 
dishonourable  peace,  when  defeat  and  his  son 
Conrad's  rebellion  drove  him  home  again.  Conrad, 
deeply  religious,  but  a  dreamer,  believed  or  imagined 
things  too  monstrous  for  recital  which  he  charged 
upon  his  father,  and  escaping  to  Matilda's  partisans, 
was  crowned  King  of  Italy  in  Monza  and  Milan. 
The   Pope,  meanwhile,   lived  as  a   wanderer  on  the 


234  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 

face  of  the  earth  in  the  Norman  dominions.  When 
this  intelhgence  reached  him,  he  came  back  to  Rome 
and  kept  Christmas  there  in  1093.  Henry  was 
shattered  by  his  favourite  son's  defection.  Guibert 
expressed  his  wilHngness  to  abdicate.  At  Piacenza 
in  1095  Urban  gathered  an  assembly  of  thousands, 
eager  to  take  the  Cross  ;  and  before  them  all  he 
gave  ear  to  the  frightful  accusations  which  were 
brought  against  her  husband  by  the  Empress  and 
declared  them  well-founded.  These  events  broke 
the  Imperial  influence  in  Lombardy  ;  and  after  some 
vicissitudes,  during  which  Matilda  separated  from 
her  foolish  husband,  a  party  of  Crusaders  took  Rome 
on  their  way  to  Palestine.  In  1097  Guibert  was 
finally  dislodged  from  St.  Angelo. 

But  Urban  had  entered  France  in  triumph.  He 
acted  with  all  the  pomp  and  authority  of  a  King. 
Philip  I.,  weak  and  dissolute,  not  taking  from  his 
predecessors  the  severe  warning  administered  to 
them  by  Nicholas  I.  and  other  Popes,  had  put  away 
his  Queen  Bertha,  and  seized  Beltrada,  wife  of  the 
Count  of  Anjou.  This  pretended  marriage  was 
allowed  by  the  Bishop  of  Senlis,  denounced  by 
Yvo  of  Chartres,  who  suffered  imprisonment  in 
consequence,  arid  reluctantly  condemned  by  Hugh 
of  Lyons  in  a  Council  at  Autun,  which,  however, 
excommunicated  both  the  King  of  France  and  the 
German  P^mperor.  Urban  now  arrived  at  Cluny, 
where  another  Hugh,  forty-six  years  Abbot,  welcomed 
him  as  an  old  disciple.  The  famous  Council  at 
Clermont  followed  (1095),  and  most  remarkable  it 
is  that  a  French  Pope  should  command  all  Europe 


CROSS  AND    TIARA  235 

to  enter  on  a  distant,  a  hazardous  expedition,  while 
his  capital  was  in  the  hands  of  an  Antipope,  the 
Emperor  lay  under  interdict,  and  the  successor  of 
Hugh  Capet  was  excommunicate.  In  his  own 
person  Urban  combined  the  temporal  and  spiritual 
sovereignty  of  the  West ;  neither  did  this  amazing 
double  character  of  the  Papacy  provoke  remonstrance 
on  the  part  of  nobles  or  kings,  though  it  dated  no 
farther  back  than  Gregory  VII.  Philip  apologized, 
shuffled,  was  absolved,  and  after  a  wretched  comedy 
which  lasted  fifteen  years,  died  in  peace  with  the 
Church. 

To  complete  our  picture  of  times  so  unlike  the 
present,  we  need  only  remember  how  Ansel m  of 
Canterbury  was  entering  at  the  same  period  on 
his  long  quarrel  with  William  Rufus  and  Henry 
Beauclerc,  which  fills  a  tumultuous  chapter  in  our 
native  history. 

But  the  schismatic,  the  anti-clerical  party  as  we 
should  now  term  it,  was  no  match  for  Saints  or 
Crusaders.  When  Silvester  II.  conceived  the  daring 
idea  of  overcoming  Islam  in  the  Holy  Land — a 
design  taken  up  by  Pope  Gregory  and  carried  out 
by  Urban — he  cannot  have  anticipated  that  the 
rights  and  privileges  accruing  thence  to  the  Roman 
Church,  would  make  it  the  mightiest  of  visible 
kingdoms,  suzerain  over  Europe,  rich  with  the 
tribute  of  clergy,  laity,  monks,  and  military  orders, 
of  which  no  account  was  asked  or  given.  The 
Crusades  dealt  to  Franconians  and  Hohenstauffen 
the  deadliest  blows,  while  investing  the  Papacy  with 
a  moral  splendour  as  the  defender  of  Christendom, 


236  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 

and  awakening  the   consciousness,   never  afterwards 
dormant,  that  in  spite  of  local  or  national  differences 
Englishmen,  Germans,  Spaniards,  and   Italians  were 
■    members  of  one  great  Confederation. 
«  This  movement,  so  wide  and  deep,  resembled  the 

m  outburst  of  new  ideas  which  we  call  the  French 
Revolution  in  its  immediate  effects  on  lesser  quarrels 
and  the  internal  dissensions  of  Europe.  Where  it 
did  not  submerge,  it  tended  to  absorb  them.  Even 
Henry  IV.  spoke  of  taking  the  Cross  ;  if  he  drew 
back  it  was  because  he  could  not  join  the  orthodox 
hosts  without  acknowledging  Gregory's  Ultramontane 
successor.  Yet  the  enthusiasm  awakened  at  Cler- 
mont gave  him  four  years'  peace  ;  and,  in  common 
with  other  Princes,  he  proclaimed  the  Truce  of  God. 
His  Antipope  Guibert  died  in  iioo.  Urban  had 
gone  shortly  before  him  ;  a  year  later  Conrad,  the 
pious  rebel,  died  at  Florence.  There  was  a  fresh 
Pope,  Paschal  II.  ;  a  new  King  of  the  Romans,  or 
heir-apparent  to  the  Empire,  in  the  person  of  young 
Henry,  whom  his  father  saw  crowned  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  in  1099.  Reconciliation  seemed  in  sight. 
But  the  old  Emperor  would  not  sue  even  to  a  Pontiff 
so  mild  and  considerate  as  Paschal,  who  was  forced 
unwillingly  to  keep  him  outside  the  Church's  pale. 
In  1 104  began  the  last  act  of  an  historical  drama 
which  had  gone  on  for  fifty  years.  Prince  Henry, 
ambitious,  subtle,  seductive,  quite  innocent  of  a 
conscience,  revolted.  With  protestations  of  fervent 
piety  this  bold  youth  took  his  father  captive,  im- 
prisoned and  deposed  him — the  Bishops  and  the 
army    applauding — while    filial    manifestoes   in    the 


HENRY    V.    EMPEROR  J^'^^'J 

harshest  language  declared  the  Emperoiycm worthy 
to  reign,  not  fit  to  live.  Henry's  cuppas  full  ;  he 
died  an  outcast  at  Liege  in  I266^his  remains,  in 
a  stone  sarcophagus,  waited  many  years  for  the 
decencies  of  burial. 

And  now,  says  Montalembert,  Churchmen  were 
bitterly  to  atone  for  having  accepted,  even  against 
a  guilty  father,  the  aid  of  an  unnatural  son.  Henry  V. 
was  acknowledged  by  Paschal,  the  monk  of  Cluny, 
who  had  seen  three  Antipopes  raised  up  and  cast 
down  in  his  presence  at  Rome.  At  once  he  claimed 
by  his  ambassadors  the  privilege  conceded  to  Charle- 
magne of  electing  Bishops,  and  overawed  the  small 
number  of  Papal  ecclesiastics  in  Germany.  He 
strengthened  his  hands  by  an  alliance  with  Maud, 
Henry  Beauclerc's  daughter.  And  the  same  year, 
August,  1 1  lo,  the  Emperor-elect,  with  thirty  thousand 
horse,  went  down  into  the  plains  of  Lombardy.  As 
ever,  the  Italian  cities  were  in  deadly  feud.  Henry 
smote  them  into  peace  by  the  sack  of  Novara  ; 
received  the  homage  of  all,  except  the  great  Tuscan 
Countess,  on  the  plain  of  Roncaglia  ;  burnt  Arezzo, 
and  came  to  Sutri.  The  Roman  Empire  had 
suddenly  revived  in  this  active,  formidable,  keen- 
witted Prince,  who  was  no  less  skilful  in  chicane 
than  in  war.  Like  his  father  he  could  be  violent  ; 
but  he  understood,  as  Henry  IV.  never  did,  how 
to  display  his  Imperial  pretensions  on  a  ground 
of  law  and  custom. 

He  now  reiterated  his  demands  to  Peter  Leone, 
the  Hebrew  delegate  who  had  been  sent  to  him 
by  Paschal.     Investiture   of   the   ring  and  the   staff 


238  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,    INVESTITURES 

did  not  exist  in  France.  Thanks  to  Anselm  of 
Canterbury,  it  had  just  been  surrendered  by  the 
King  of  England.  But  Henry  insisted  on  a  practice 
without  which  his  German  sovereignty  was  a  mere 
name — a  practice,  he  argued,  dating  from  Charles 
the  Great,  and  approved  by  sixty-three  Popes. 
Towns,  castles,  marches,  tolls — perhaps  two-thirds 
of  Germany — said  the  Archbishop  of  Treves  before 
Suger  and  the  Pope  at  Chalons  in  1107,  went  to 
swell  the  regalia  which  clerics  enjoyed,  and  how, 
except  by  investiture,  could  the  King  maintain  his 
rights  over  them  ?  But  argument  was  not  the 
weapon  of  a  lawless  age.  Paschal  had  beckoned  to 
the  Norman  knights  of  Apulia ;  they  would  not 
stir.  His  Cardinals  and  the  Romans  themseves  fell 
into  dire  perplexity.  Then  the  Pope  made  an  offer 
at  which  Europe  stood  aghast.  Acting  as  supreme 
administrator  of  Church  property,  Paschal  consented 
to  give  up  the  whole  of  the  regalia — we  must  scan 
it  with  the  mind's  eye  :  territories,  cities,  monasteries, 
innumerable  rights  and  revenues,  the  gifts  of  nearly 
four  hundred  years — in  exchange  for  freedom  of 
election  to  spiritual  dignities.  The  Hierarchy  was 
to  be  disendowed,  if  Henry  would  suffer  it  to  be 
disestablished.  On  tithes  and  voluntary  subscrip- 
tions the  clergy  should  subsist  henceforth.  By  such 
a  measure  the  Church  would  pass  out  of  the  entire 
feudal  system  ;  prelates  would  no  longer  yield 
military  service  ;  the  sceptre  and  the  crozier  would 
be  sundered  ;  and  the  Emperor  would  find  him- 
self powerful  enough  to  cope  with  his  mightiest 
peers,  their  sovereign  not  only  in  title  but  in  fact. 


'      paschal' S   SURRENDER  239 

Seven  hundred  years  afterwards  this  dream  of 
a  Pope  in  extremity  was  fulfilled  by  the  "  rhediatising  " 
of  all  the  German  ecclesiastical  princes,  or  their 
absorption  into  the  secular  dominions  of  Prussia, 
Austria,  and  Bavaria  in  1815.  When  Paschal  and 
Henry  exchanged  signatures,  neither  can  have 
supposed  that  the  compact  would  stand.  Other 
parties  to  so  momentous  a  transaction  must  be 
consulted.  Henry,  after  hostages  given  on  either 
side,  and  his  guarantee  of  the  Apostolic  Patrimony, 
including  all  the  South  which  he  did  not  hold, 
entered  Rome,  took  the  customary  oaths,  and  met 
Paschal  in  the  portico  of  St.  Peter's.  He  was  declared 
Emperor  ;  but  now,  when  the  terms  of  this  astonishing 
compromise  were  read  over,  the  Pope's  followers 
broke  out  in  tumult ;  the  German  himself  would  not 
ratify  what  he  had  signed.  For  a  whole  day  Paschal 
sat  a  prisoner  in  front  of  the  Apostle's  shrine  ;  the 
population  rose,  massacred  stray  Teutons,  assailed 
St.  Peter's,  and  wounded  the  Emperor.  They  paid 
for  their  temerity  by  a  great  slaughter.  Yet  Henry 
was  compelled  to  withdraw  uncrowned.  He  took 
with  him  Pope  and  Cardinals  ;  wasted  the  Campagna 
for  two  whole  months  ;  and  kept  Paschal  shut  up 
in  the  fort  of  Treviso.  At  length,  on  the  field  of 
Sette  Frati,  the  Pontiff  gave  in.  He  yielded  up, 
without  equivalent,  the  right  of  investiture.  Henry 
was  crowned  and  went  back  to  Germany.  The 
defeated  Pope  crept  into  the  Lateran,  and  there  hid 
his  shame. 

Paschal  had  swornneverto  excommunicate  Henry  V. 
Bruno  of  Segni  and  the  Cardinals  argued  that  such 


240  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 

a  treaty  was  null  and  void  ;  they  obliged  their  spiritual 
lord  to  renew  the  decrees  of  Gregory  and  Urban. 
In  March,  11 12,  the  Italian  prelates  held  a  Lateran 
Council,  at  which  the  Pope  made  full  and  ample 
amends  for  his  concession  to  human  weakness.  He 
would  not  molest  Henry ;  the  Fathers  might  do 
as  seemed  right  in  their  eyes.  Without  hesitation 
they  cancelled  the  odious  privilege.  At  Vienne, 
Guido,  afterwards  Calixtus  II.,  cut  off  Henry  from 
Catholic  communion  ;  and  though  Yvo  of  Chartres 
stood  up  for  moderate  courses,  opinion  among  Church- 
men declared  more  and  jnore  violently  against  the 
Emperor.  The  German  bishops,  the  monks  of 
Hirschau,  the  people  of  Mayence  with  their  Arch- 
bishop Albert,  revolted.  Matilda  of  Tuscany,  dying 
in  II 15,  bequeathed  her  immense  possessions,  though 
fiefs  depending  on  the  Imperial  crown,  to  Paschal  and 
his  successors.  Again  Henry  must  cross  the  Alps. 
In  March,  11 16,  another  Lateran  Council,  another 
confession  from  Paschal,  "  I  am  dust  and  ashes. 
Anathema  to  the  unrighteous  decree."  His  Cardinals 
treated  him  still  with  indignant  contempt.  The 
Romans,  on  their  own  account,  were  in  rebellion. 
The  Emperor  took  possession  of  Matilda's  inheri- 
tance, and  in  11 17  he  entered  the  city.  Paschal  fled 
south  ;  when  Henry  retired  he  came  back,  surprised 
and  took  the  Vatican,  but  almost  immediately  after 
expired  in  St.  Angelo  (i  118). 

Straightway  the  Cardinals  elected  John  of  Gaeta, 
monk  from  Monte  Cassino,  friend  and  minister  of 
Paschal,  an  erudite  but  not  a  strong  person. 
Gelasius    II.    was    hardly    chosen    when    Frangipani 


COUiNTESS    MATILDA    IN    THE    VATICAN    BASILICA. 

{Bernini.) 


17 


242  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,   INVESTITURES 

(a  Cencio)  invaded  the  church,  seized  and  struck 
the  Pope,  and  chained  him  up  Hke  a  dog  in  his 
citadel  below  the  Palatine.  These  Tusculans  were 
Imperialist,  that  is  to  say,  antipapal  ;  and  their  fierce 
and  brutal  violence  breaks  in  even  on  the  rude 
theatre  of  the  Middle  Ages  like  a  thunderclap. 
Other  nobles  took  sides  with  the  monks  ;  Gelasius 
found  the  door  open  and  escaped  in  a  tempest, 
during  which  he  was  borne  on  the  shoulders  of 
Cardinal  Hugo  to  Ardea.  Henry  lay  outside  the 
Leonine  walls.  While  the  Pope  in  Gaeta  bestowed  on 
William  the  Norman  Naples  and  Sicily,  the  Emperor 
had  Maurice  Burdin  of  Braga  made  Antipope. 
Gelasius,  after  fresh  perils  in  Rome,  fled  to  Pisa,  where 
he  consecrated  the  majestic  cathedral,  and  thence  to 
Marseilles.  He  made  a  solemn  progress  through  the 
cities  on  the  Rhone  and  died  at  Cluny  (1119),  after  a 
disastrous  reign  of  one  year. 

Guido  of  Vienne,  Calixtus  H.,  succeeded  ;  and  now 
France,  rising  slowly  to  its  great  medieval  honours, 
held  as  a  rule  by  the  autheritic  Papacy,  while  the 
Germans  created  or  sustained  Antipopes  in  the 
Emperor's  interest.  Like  Urban  H.,  Calixtus,  though 
inflexible  in  defence  of  his  order,  showed  no  slight 
diplomatic  skill  ;  his  French  common  sense  enabled 
him  to  bring  this  weary  business  of  investitures  to 
a  reasonable  conclusion.  Henry  was  not  unwilling 
to  acknowledge  a  Pontiff  allied  with  himself  as  with 
the  reigning  houses  of  Europe,  and  already  owned 
by  his  German  Bishops.  At  Rheims  (November, 
1 1 19),  in  one  of  the  most  imposing  Councils  ever 
held,  Calixtus  renewed  the  Truce  of  God  ;  listened 


CONCOkDAT   OF    WORMS  1\^ 

to  the  Kings  of  France  and  England  pleading  at 
his  tribunal ;  and  after  fruitless  negotiations,  solemnly 
put  to  the  ban  Emperor  and  simoniacal  prelates  with 
Burdin  the  Antipope,  calling  himself  Gregory  VIII. 
He  had  boldly  undertaken  to  meet  Henry  ;  now  he 
went  a  triumphal  progress  through  Southern  France  ; 
he  entered  Italy,  received  the  homage  of  Milan,  was 
welcomed  in  Rome  itself  with  transport,  and  ended  his 
long  pilgrimage  at  Benevento.  In  1121  he  captured 
Burdin  at  Sutri,  exposed  him  to  public  derision  in  the 
streets  of  the  city,  and  flung  him  into  a  forgotten 
dungeon,  where  he  died. 

No  German  had  come  to  his  rescue.  Albert  of 
Mayence  and  the  Emperor  stood  up  as  to  do  battle 
with  one  another  ;  but  the  Treaty  of  Wurzburg  and 
the  Concordat  of  Worms  proved  that  an  agreement 
was  desired  by  the  whole  Empire  on  terms  which 
might  leave  the  Bishops  in  possession  of  their  fiefs, 
provided  they  were  not  absolutely  independent  of  the 
secular  over-lord.  In  1122  the  Bishop  of  Ostia 
relieved  Henry  and  his  partisans  from  the  censures  of 
the  Church;  the  Lateran  Council  of  11 23,  with  its 
six  hundred  abbots  and  three  hundred  Bishops, 
sealed  up  what  had  been  accomplished  at  Worms. 
Something  was  yielded  on  both  sides.  The  Emperor 
gave  up  his  episcopal  functions  of  the  ring  and  the 
staff ;  he  granted  free  election,  and  restored  his 
conquests  made  during  the  war.  And  the  Pope 
admitted  that  for  the  regalia  there  should  be  homage 
made  by  Bishops  and  Abbots  chosen  in  the  Imperial 
presence,  who  were  to  touch  the  golden  sceptre  and 
discharge  all  duties  incident  to  their  feudal  tenures. 


244  NORMANS,    CRUSADES,    INVESTITURES 

It  was  a  fair  adjustment  of  complex  interests. 
Gregory  VII.  had  gained  the  spiritual  freedom  for 
which  he  strove  so  manfully,  and  without  which 
Bishops  would  have  lost  their  sacred  character, 
degraded  into  lieutenants  of  an  earthly  king. 
Henry  V.,  though  posterity  does  not  admire  him, 
gained  the  no  less  important  admission  that  every 
kind  of  property  carries  with  it  social  or  political 
obligations,  from  which  it  can  never  be  exempt.  The 
Concordat  of  Worms  respected  in  clergy  and  laity 
rights  that  are  seldom  violated  without  detriment  to 
society  as  a  whole. 


XVI 

ST.  BERNARD  OVERTHROWS  ABELARD  AND 
ARNOLD 


(1123-.II55) 


To  the  great  Burgundian  Pope,  Calixtus,  a 
Burgundian  Saint  far  more  illustrious  was  destined 
to  succeed,  not  in  the  Papal  Chair,  but  in  his  influence 
over  the  hearts  and  actions  of  men,,  now  awakening 
to  chivalry,  to  culture,  and  to  a  romantic  sense  of  the 
beauty  and  grace  which  Oriental  lands  had  opened 
before  the  vision  of  Crusaders.  It  is  a  stirring,  yet 
not  altogether  uncouth  age,  this  first  half  of  the 
twelfth  century  ;  and  its  prophet,  its  king,  is  St. 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  He  reforms  monasticism, 
nominates  to  the  Papacy,  preaches  the  Second 
Crusade,  puts  down  Abelard,  is  more  than  a  match 
for  Arnold  of  Brescia.  During  well-nigh  forty  years 
he  is  the  spiritual  dictator  of  the  West,  and  that  in  a 
period  when  men  of  strong  character  abounded,  and 
genius    was    not   wanting]      The    busy    picturesque 

interval  between  Henry  V.'s  triumph  at  Worms  and 

246 


NEW  ERA    BEGINS  247 

the  long  troubles  of  Frederick  Barbarossa,  seems  to 
be  filled  with  the  person,  the  deeds,  the  sermons,  the 
miracles  of  this  white-robed  monk,  whose  pale  and 
refined  features,  consumptive  in  their  fairness,  leave 
the  impression  of  a  detached,  yet  fiery  soul.  Far 
more  winning  than  Gregory  VII.  he  is  not  a  whit  less 
imperious.  In  spirit  as  in  name  he  is  the  last  of  the 
Fathers. 

For  with  Abelard  begins  the  strife  of  the  Schools 
which  led  up  to  Albert  the  Great  and  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  down  to  Luther  and  Calvin.  With 
the  Republican  Arnold,  the  national,  Italian  sentiment 
springs  to  life  which  has  created  modern  Italy.  With 
Barbarossa  the  German  Empire  emancipates  itself 
from  the  earlier  conception  familiar  to  Charlemagne 
or  Nicholas  I.,  and  sets  up  jurist  against  canonist, 
the  Civil  against  the  Ecclesiastical  Law,  Cc-Ksar  against 
the  Pope  as  supreme  in  the  secular  sphere,  and  that 
by  right  divine.  Henry  V.  and  Calixtus  II.  for  a 
moment  held  the  balance  even  ;  henceforth  it  swings 
violently  up  and  down,  sometimes  in  the  Pope's 
favour,  sometimes  the  reverse  ;  but  it  descends  at  last 
laden  with  the  Pandects  of  lawyers  and  the  sword  of 
Julius.  Individual  Emperors  might  suffer  defeat  ;  a 
dynasty  like  the  Hohenstauffen  be  sacrificed  ;  but 
the  movement  which  began  blindly  under  Henry  IV. 
never  was  really  arrested  or  thrown  back  until  it  had 
bereft  the  Popes  of  their  feudal  overlordship,  pre- 
pared the  way  for  absolute  monarchs,  converted  the 
oligarchy  of  the  Barons  to  a  House  of  Peers,  and  by 
an  unconscious,  yet  irresistible,  trend  of  events  made 
Parliamentary  institutions  possible,  and  gave  the  Free 


248  ST.    BERNARD,    ABELARD,   ARNOLD 

Cities  a  share  in  government.  To  these  far-off  issues 
all  parties  contributed  in  turn.  But  we  may  trace 
their  beginnings  to  the  twelfth  century. 

J^ot  Rome  but  Paris  appears  as  the  vyorld's  capital 
during  this  time.  And  Monasticism  was  entering  on 
its  last  shining  transformation,  before  it  gave  place  to 
Francis  and  Dominic  with  their  mendicant  friars. 
Cluny  had  seen  its  best  days.  After  St.  Hugh's  sixty 
^ears^fstern  Apostolic  rule,  came  Pontius  the  feeble, 
came  wealth  and  relaxation.  The  centralising 
government  which  brought  dominion  made  a  fresh 
start  in  fervour  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  New 
forms  of  the  higher  life  were  demanded.  Fontevraud 
had  its  singular  story.  Molesme  was  founded  by  two 
penitent  brothers  ;  Citeaux,  yet  more  severe,  by  an 
Englishman,  Stephen  Harding,  from  Dorsetshire. 
This  great  man  was  Abbot  when  Bernard,  the  noble 
Burgundian  youth,  fled  out  of  the  world  to 
Citeaux  ;  and  thus  the  Cistercian  Order  reached  its 
high  fame. 

Once  more  monastic  solitudes  drew  crowds  of 
votaries  ;  Bernard  lived  a  life  hard  beyond  descrip- 
tion, but  when  he  preached  of  its  joys  men,  both 
single  and  married,  left  all  things  to  follow  him. 
This,  too,  was  a  form  of  crusading  which  attracted 
thousands.  He  was  sent  with  a  few  companions  to 
the  Valley  of  Wormwood  in  Champagne ;  he  called 
it  Clairvaux,  and  it  ceased  to  be  a  wilderness  ;  but 
the  simple  fare  and  strict  rule  astonished  those  who 
came  thither  from  Cluny.  Bernard  was  not  learned 
except  in  the  Scriptures  ;  he  preached  a  figured  and 
passionate   mysticism    with    an    eloquence    as    com- 


\:ijt^-i^^ 


SCHISM   OF  PETER   LEONE  249 

manding  as  that  of  his  later  countryman  Bossuet, 
whose  untroubled  point  of  view,  averse  to  subtleties7 
dogmatic  and  decided,  Bernard  might  seem  to 
anticipate.  William  of  Champeaux,  Bishop  of 
Chalons,  gave  him  a  commission  to  teach  ;  his 
colonies  of  white  monks  spread  their  Abbot's 
reputation  throughout  Europe.  A  schism  at  Rome 
made  him  the  arbiter  of  the  Papacy. 

Henry  V.,  last  Franconian  C?esar,  was  gone. 
Lothair  the  Saxon  reigned  in  his  stead.  Honorius 
II.,  after  a  contested  election,  had  filled  the  Apostolic 
throne  six  years,  and  dying  in  1130  opened  the  way 
to  fresh  Roman  quarrels  of  the  kind  we  have  studied 
so  often.  Sixteen  Cardinals  chose  without  delay 
Innocent  II.  Thirty-two,  after  a  pause,  voted  for 
Peter  Leone,  of  Jewish  descent,  vast  wealth,  and 
undoubted  popularity.  On  Peter's  side  were  the 
Frangipani,  Roger  the  Sicilian  Duke,  and  a  majority 
of  the  Sacred  College.  Innocent  took  flight  to  Pisa 
and  sought  the  protection  of  Louis,  the  French  King, 
whq  summoned  a  Council  at  Etampes.  Many 
Bishops  attended,  but  the  Abbot  of  Clairvaux  was 
called  upon  to  direct  them  as  another  Samuel.  He 
pronounced  for  the  fugitive.  Innocent  arrived  at 
Cluny,  met  King  Louis  at  Orleans,  and  Henry  I.  of 
England,  whom  Bernard  had  brought  over  to  his 
side,  at  Chartres.  The  Emperor  followed  suit. 
Frederick  of  Hohenstauffen,  and  Conrad,  King  of 
Italy,  were  included  in  the  anathema  hurled  against 
Peter  Leone,  called  Anacletus  II. 

But  when  Pope  and  Emperor  met  at  Liege  it  was 
only   Bernard's   arguments   that    prevented    the   old 


250  ST.    BERNARD,    ABELARD,    ARNOLD 

quarrel  of  investitures  from  being  ripped  up  again. 
Innocent  passed  a  night  at  Clairvaux  ;  it  was  too 
austere  for  his  Roman  Cardinals.  Still  the  Saint  and 
Prophet  addressed  vehement  letters  to  Bishops,  to 
Genoa  and  Milan  ;  he  went  with  the  Pope  to  Italy  ; 
with  him  and  Lothair  he  entered  Rome.  "  The 
Jewish  schismatic,"  supported  by  Normans,  held 
St.  Angelo,  even  against  the  Germans  ;  and  Bernard's 
Pontiff  spent  four  years  at  Pisa,  until  Lothair  con- 
quered all  Italy  down  to  Apulia  (which  he  claimed) 
and  Anacletus  died  in  his  castle.  Victor  II.  became 
the  next  Antipope.  Bernard  persuaded  him  to 
renounce  his  pretensions  and  the  family  of  Peter 
Leone  to  cease  from  troubling.  Not  even  the  Roman 
stubbornness  could  remain  deaf  to  his  persuasive 
words.  He  had  brought  the  world  round  to 
Innocent  II.  The  Lateran  Council  of  1139  sat  under 
his  inspiration  ;  its  decrees  witness  that  Church 
authority  had  attained  almost  all  it  demanded,  but 
that  resistance  to  dogma  as  well  as  to  discipline  had 
begun  in  the  cities  of  Lombardy  and  the  valleys  of 
the  Alps. 

If  we  assign  the  modern  movement  in  politics, 
philosophy^  and  letters  to  thej:welfth  century,  it  is  to 
Paris  or  France  that  we  must  look  for  its  origin. 
France  was  then  a  world  in  itself,  with  its  rhymers  in 
Provence  who  fixed  the  measures  of  song  and  verse ; 
its  ardent,  ascetic  monks  in  Burgundy,  destined  ere  a 
/hundred  years  had  passed  to  lift  the  Cross  in  battle 
/against  these  amorous  poets  ;  its  thinkers  from 
Brittany,  who  found  a  voice  in  Peter  Abelard,  the 
kinsman    of    Pelagius,    the    ancestor,    not    only    of 


252  ST.    BERNARD,    A  BE  LARD,    ARNOLD 

Descartes,  but  of  Chateaubriand.     France    was    the 
brain,  the   eye,  the  armed    right    hand    of   medieval 
Europe.       Its    delicate    genius    invented    the    (iothic  y^^jjH 
style,  the  troubadour  minstrelsy,  the  romance  of  love   ^^i/T^ 
and    adventure;    its    clear    thought    strives    in    the  '^7\'^'^ 
technique  of  scholastic  forms   to  arrive  at  a  system 
which  shall    leave  no  question  unanswered  ;  its  gay 
spirit,  mingling  with  the  Norman  strength,  the  Celtic 
impetuosity,  carried    to    all    the    coasts    of  Asia,  to 
Euphrates  and  the  Nile,  a  people  so  enamoured  of 
fighting   that   to   this    day  in   the  Moslem  countries 
Frank  and   European  are  synonymous.     In  our  time 
Paris  calls  itself  the  City  of  Light.     During  the  latter 
twelfth   century  and  all   the   thirteenth,   it  was  even 
more  the  Capital  of  Intelligence  than  it  is  to-day. 

From  Abelard  to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  Doctor 
Angelical,  such  is  the  glorious  ascent  of  its  University. 
But  it  could  reckon  some  earlier  names,  the  promise 
of  all  that  came  afterwards.  Charlemagne,  no  scholar 
himself,  had  founded  seminaries  in  every  bishop's 
house,  and  the  Palatine  School  under  his  own  roof 
Thither  he  summoned  Alcuin  from  Northumbria, 
whose  training  takes  us  back  to  Bede  and  Egbert  ; 
to  the  Greek  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  Theodore, 
sent  to  England  by  Pope  Vitalian  ;  to  Bennet  Biscop 
and  John,  precentor  of  the  Vatican  Basilica.  It  does 
not  appear  that  Alcuin  possessed  an  original  mind  ; 
yet  his  talent  for  teaching  entitles  him  to  the  dignity 
of  first  Rector  over  those  institutions  in  Paris  which 
later  on  developed  into  a  genuine  University.  Paris, 
Pavia,  Bologna  were  centres  of  learning  associated 
henceforth    with    Charlemagne    as    their   patron    or 


PARIS    UNIVERSITY  253 

founder.  Thus  on  three  distinct  lines  such  culture 
as  survived  during  the  chaos  of  the  tenth  century  may 
be  traced  out  ;  in  the  Benedictine  monasteries,  the 
Bishops'  Courts  or  Seminaries,  and  the  Palatine,  that 
is  to  say,  the  royal  schools.  At  Paris,  when  the 
University  came  to  riper  years,  four  nations  were 
distinguished,  the  French,  English,  Picard,  and 
Norman.  At  Bologna,  Irnerius,  the  legal  adviser  of 
Henry  IV.,  opened  his  school  of  Civil  Law,  which 
produced  effects  so  momentous  and  lasting  in 
P^uropean  politics,  towards  the  close  of  the  eleventh 
century.  And  if,  at  the  time  we  are  now  considering, 
Bologna  might  reckon  its  ten  thousand  students, 
Paris  had  at  least  its  thirty  thousand.  The  age  of 
Greek  speculation,  with  sophists,  heretics,  disputes  of 
the  market-place,  sceptics  and  orthodox,  pamphlets, 
Inquisitions,  executions  for  condemned  opinions,  and 
universal  unrest  kept  in  order  by  the  secular  arm, 
was  revived  in  the  meadows  of  St.  Germain,  and  drew 
to  the  Latin  Quarter  students  from  the  four  winds. 

But  the  School  philosophy  did  not  begin  its  career 
on  the  banks  of  the  Seine.  At  Bee  in  Normandy  a 
converted  soldier,  Herluin,  set  up  his  abode  under  the 
rule  of  Benedict.  Me  drew  disciples  from  far  and 
wide,  among  them  Lanfranc,  who  opened  a  school 
of  logic,  wrote  against  Berengar,  the  rationalising 
Canon  of  Tours,  and  died  in  the  See  of  Canterbury  to 
which  he  had  been  called  by  William  the  Conqueror. 
Next  came  Anselm  of  Aosta,  the  Lombard,  whose 
delight  in  learning  and  in  friendship,  whose  trials 
under  Rufus  and  Christian  triumph  over  Beauclerc, 
adorn   as  romantic  a   page  of  history  as  the  Middle 


254 

Age  could  illuminate.  Anselm  was  a  logician 
according  to  method  ;  but  he  was  likewise  a  Saint 
and  a  contemplative  ;  in  him  the  Benedictine  quiet 
is  not  yet  troubled  by  doubts  or  lost  in  wrangling, 
although  at  the  Council  of  Bari  he  met  the  Greeks 
with  their  own  weapons.  He  asked  questions  of 
which  the  solution  was  already  given  him  by 
Revelation.  But  Roscelin  took  a  farther  step.  His 
follower  was  Abelard  ;  and  soon  the  world  went  mad 
over  Being  and  Not-Being  and  the  nature  of  universal 
ideas.  About  the  year  iioo  William  of  Champeaux 
was  teaching  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Victor.  He 
disclosed  the  method  of  arguing  on  both  sides  in 
order  to  discover  the  truth.  Thus  he  paved  the  way 
towards  accepting  Aristotle  as  a  Christian  philosopher. 
And  he  was  the  master  of  Abelard,  an  incipient 
sceptic,  a  man  of  letters,  yet  a  foe  to  classic  authority. 
If  to  Anselm  we  leave  the  honour  of  starting  the 
orthodox  system  on  its  march,  to  Abelard  we  cannot 
but  assign  the  beginnings  of  that  rebellious  movement 
which  prompted  one  after  another  to  fall  out  of  the 
orthodox  ranks,  and  to  assail  the  Hierarchy  that 
opposed  them  or  the  monasteries  which  they  had 
quitted,  with  the  arms  of  private  judgment. 

Peter  Abelard  (1079-1142)  was  born  at  Palais,  in 
Brittany,  of  parents  who  both  afterwards  took  the 
monastic  vows.  At  sixteen  he  left  home  to  study 
in  the  most  famous  schools  ;  at  twenty-one  he  became 
the  disciple  of  William  of  Champeaux.  But  he  soon 
began  to  vex  him  with  subtle  arguments,  and  he  left 
his  master  for  Melun  and  Corbeil,  where  the  enter- 
prising youth  set  up  on  his  own  account.     By  and  by, 


ALCIDIADES   PROFESSOR  255 

on  his  return  after  an  illness,  he  found  William  had 
put  on  the  religious  habit  in  St.  Victor's,  and  they 
were  reconciled.  But  fresh  combats  ensued  ;  William, 
if  not  defeated,  fell  into  discouragement.  He  took 
refuge  in  the  See  of  Chalons  ;  and  x\belard,  brushing 
contemptuously  aside  another  old  master,  Anselm  of 
Laon,  seized  the  vacant  chair  at  Paris,  began  lecturing 
with  an  eloquence  and  acumen  which  dazzled  the. 
largest  audiences,  and  soon  attracted  crowds  from 
beyond  the   Rhine,  the  Alps,    the  English  Channel. 

He  made  a  fortune  by  his  lectures ;  he  was  handsome, 
winning,  accomplished  in  music,  an  Alcibiades  who 
reasoned  like  Plato,  and  a  philosopher  who  was  more 
than  half  a  troubadour.  Among  those  that  listened 
to  him  were  Peter  Lombard,  John  of  Salisbury, 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  lights  or  guides  to  the  next 
generation.  But  his  chief  scholar  was  a  woman,  of 
extraordinary  spirit  and  equal  beauty,  Heloise,  niece 
of  Canon  Fulbert — the  victim,  the  wife,  the  widow  of 
unhappy  Abelard.  Their  story  cannot  be  told  here. 
Enough  that  when  the  fallen  Alcibiades  hid  his  face 
in  the  monastery  of  St.  Denis,  HeloTse  took  the  veil 
at  Argenteuil.  When  we  read  her  impassioned 
letters  and  his  fragment  of  autobiography,  so  unlike 
St.  Augustine's  Confessions  in  its  self-praise  and 
sadness,  we  seem  to  have  stepped  from  the  twelfth 
to  the  eighteenth  century,  from  St.  Bernard  to 
Rousseau,  from  the  medieval  cloister  to  a  modern 
French  drawing-room. 

Hitherto  Abelard  had  been  a  professor.  Now  he 
became  a  monk,  and  would  have  reformed  St.  Denis. 
The  community  thrust  him  out.     He  was  accused  of 


256  ST.    BERNARD,    ABELARD,    ARNOLD 

heresy,  and  had  to  burn  his  book.  Then  he  retired 
to  the  Paraclete,  a  wild  solitude  in  Champagne,  and 
once  more  scholars  flocked  round  him.  But  they 
obeyed  no  canonical  rule  ;  they  discussed  the  mys- 
teries of  the  Faith  freely.  St.  Norbert,  Archbishop 
of  Magdeburg,  had  reformed  the  Canons  Regular, 
and  founded  the  widespread  Order  of  Premontre. 
He  joined  with  St.  Bernard  in  denouncing  Abelard. 
Abelard  retorted  by  calling  them  "the  new  Apostles." 
But  he  could  not  fence  with  champions  so  well  fur- 
nished. In  1 125  he  went  home  to  Brittany;  Heloise 
and  her  nuns  took  possession  of  the  Paraclete.  There 
followed  an  interval  of  comparative  peace.  Then, 
in  1 140,  when  he  was  sixty  years  old,  Abelard 
appeared  as  a  suspected  heretic  before  the  Council  of 
Sens.  St.  Bernard  had  stirred  up  the  French  prelates 
against  this  unheard-of  Gospel,  these  novel  disputa- 
tions. The  modern  writings  penetrated  everywhere  ; 
but  to  overthrow  them  by  syllogism  could  not  be  a 
monk's  business  ;  and  Bernard  accused  their  authors, 
while  declining  to  argue  in  form  against  them.  At 
the  Council  mystic  and  rationalist  came  face  to  face. 
Abelard  appealed  to  Rome.  The  prelates,  in  a  session 
which  has  been  grotesquely  caricatured,  condemned 
his  propositions.  In  like  manner  did  Pope  Innocent 
II.  The  philosopher  set  out  on  his  journey  to  the 
Lateran  ;  he  was  kindly  entertained  by  Peter  the 
Venerable  at  Cluny ;  and  he  died  at  Chalons  sur 
Saone,  April  21,  1142.  His  remains  were  taken  to 
the    Paraclete,    where    twenty-one    years    afterwardsj 

Heloise  was  laid  by  his  side. 

Peter  Lombard,  in  his  book  called  the   Sentences 


i8 


258  ST.   BERNARD,   ABELARD,   ARNOLD 

of  the  Fathers,  may  be  thought  to  have  improved 
on  the  method  of  Abelard's  treatise,  Sic  et  Non — or 
"  Yea  and  Nay  " — which  did  suggest  the  recognised 
form  of  scholastic  teaching.  But  in  Arnold  of  Brescia 
he  had  trained  not  so  much  a  philosopher  as  an 
agitator.  This  bold  man  appears  to  be  the  demo- 
cratic soldier  of  Abelard,  not  less  opposed  to  the 
Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  nor  in  his  opposition  more  for- 
tunate. That  his  character  was  without  blemish  we 
learn  from  St.  Bernard  himself,  who  allows  his  capti- 
vating eloquence,  while  regarding  him  as  little  better 
than  Antichrist.  Brescia  had  revolted  from  the 
Empire  ;  i^  banished  its  tyrant-bishop,  and  under 
Arnold's  direction  reduced  the  clergy  to  their  spiritual 
functions.  Accused  of  schism  at  the  Lateran  Council 
(i  139)  he  fled  to  Zurich.  Five  years  after,  the  war  of 
Rome  against  Tivoli  and  the  revolt  against  Innocent 
II.  of  his  intractable  subjects,  made  Arnold  for  a 
brief  space  dictator  on  the  Capitol.  His  patron  at 
Zurich  had  become  Coelestine  II.  (1143).  But  in  six 
months  Ccelestine  was  gone;  and  when  Lucius  II. 
took  his  place,  the  Roman  Republic,  by  the  lips  of 
its  Patrician  Giordano,  warned  the  Pope  that  he  must 
exercise  no  temporal  rule,  but  be  content  with  tithes 
and  oblations.  Lucius  called  to  the  Emperor  Conrad  ; 
he  armed  his  nobles,  attempted  to  storm  the  Capitol, 
and  perished  in  the  assault.  Giordano  razed  to  the 
ground  Cardinals'  palaces  and  the  forts  of  many  high 
chieftains.  It  is  clear  that  the  whole  movement,  as 
directed  by  Arnold,  was  democratic.  Friends  of  the 
Voluntary  System,  and  all  that  uphold  with  Cavour 
"  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State,"  will  recognise  in  this 


ROMAN  REPUBLIC  AGAIN  259 

daring  champion  a  spirit  akin  to  their  own.  His 
hand  was  not  dyed  in  the  blood  of  Lucius  ;  but  his 
doctrine  shaped  the  policy  on  which  Romans  were 
now  prepared  to  act. 

In  their  consternation  the  Cardinals  turned  their 
eyes  upon  St.  Bernard.  Would  he  accept  the  triple 
crown,  or  at  least  choose  a  Pope  for  them?  He  waved 
aside  the  glittering  bait  ;  and  they  nominated  a  poor, 
unlettered  brother  of  his  convent  at  Tisa,  Eugenius 
HI.,  in  hopes  that  the  Saint  would  persuade  France 
or  Germany  to  succour  his  late  subject.  Eugenius 
was  crowned  at  Farfa.  Rome  saw  Arnold  with  his 
Swiss  mountaineers  about  him  in  company  of  Gior- 
dano the  Patrician,  who  proclaimed  the  Republic, 
created  new  noble  families  and  tribunes  of  the  people, 
fortified  St.  Peter's,  rebuilt  the  Capitol,  and  made 
pilgrims  pay  at  the  gates  of  the  city.  Bernard  in  a 
threatening  letter  commanded  him  to  desist  ;  in 
another  he  called  on  the  Emperor  Conrad  to  put 
down  these  rebels.  Eugenius  entered  into  a  league 
with  the  neighbouring  cities — he  understood  well  the 
character  of  medieval  Italians — and  with  the  help  of 
Tivoli  he  compelled  Giordano  to  abdicate.  He  kept 
his  Christmas  in  Rome  (1146).  But  in  March  he 
was  fleeing  across  the  Alps  to  Dijon  ;  for  he  would 
not  betray  Tivoli.  The  Abbot  of  Clairvaux  governed 
the  Church  in  his  disciple's  name.  He  deposed  St. 
William  of  York  on  grounds  which  could  not  be  sus- 
tained ;  he  brought  to  his  knees  the  Bishop  of 
Poitiers,  charged  with  a  subtle  heresy  ;  and  he 
roused  Europe  to  the  Second  Crusade.  Edessa  had 
fallen ;    the    Kingdom   of   Jerusalem    was    doomed. 


260  ST.   BERNARD,   ABELARD,   ARNOLD 

Eugenius  published  his  Bull  on  the  model  of  Urban's, 
and  St.  Bernard  preached  it  in  all  the  towns  and 
monasteries,  and  along  the  highways  of  France, 
Flanders,  and  Germany  (1146). 

It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  this  spiritual  dictatorship  ; 
how  the  unarmed  recluse  gave  their  uniform  to  the 
Knights  Templars ;  drew  multitudes  to  Vezelay, 
where  Louis  VII.,  in  spite  of  his  sagacious  counsellor, 
the  Abbot  Suger,  took  the  Cross  ;  compelled  from  the 
pulpit  Conrad  the  Emperor  to  follow  his  example  ; 
and,  more  astonishing  than  all,  put  an  end  to  the 
horrible  massacre  of  Jews  in  the  Rhine  cities,  where 
Rudolph  of  Mayence  raised  the  cry  against  them. 
In  the  West,  war  could  no  longer  be  waged  for  lack 
of  combatants  ;  towns  and  castles  were  empty  ;  the 
chivalry  of  Europe  had  gone  to  die  at  the  fruitless 
siege  of  Damascus.  Louis  and  Conrad  returned  in 
disgrace ;  a  deep  shadow  fell  on  St.  Bernard's  last 
years;  but  when  he  died  in  11 53  he  was  instantly 
canonised  by  acclamation. 

Eugenius  died  the  same  year.  Twice  he  came 
back  to  Rome ;  his  policy.  Christian  in  its  mildness, 
and  successful  because  he  made  little  or  no  pretence 
to  temporal  dominion,  was  to  win  his  haughty  people 
by  generosity  and  magnificent  display.  He  sent 
back  the  offerings  of  German  archbishops,  which  was 
a  new  thing  in  Rome,  wrote  St.  Bernard  with  more 
than  a  touch  of  sarcasm.  Arnold  was  losing  ground. 
In  1 1 54  an  Englishman,  a  priest,  and  a  scholar,  was 
elected,  and  Nicholas  Breakspear  became  Hadrian  IV. 
He  had  been  brought  up  a't  St.  Alban's,  but  was  not  a 
monk;  he  had  served  as  legate  in  Norway;  hisexperi- 


i 


flA^ 


£Zy6cy 


f 

THE   FIRST  HOHENSTAUFFEN  26 1 

ence  taught  him  to  strike  hard  ;  and  he  pronounced 
sentence  of  exile  against  the  Brescian  reformer. 
Arnold  denied  his  competence  ;  one  of  the  Cardinals 
was  murdered  ;  the  sturdy  Saxon  laid  Rome  itself 
under  an  interdict.  This  was  to  quench  the  very 
lights  at  St.  Peter's  shrine.  Towards  Easter  the 
clergy,  reinforced  by  their  people,  insisted  on 
obedience  to  Hadrian.  Arnold  had  no  choice  but 
to  disappear  ;  and  the  broken  Senate  laid  down  its 
arms. 

But  a  fresh  danger  loomed  on  the  Northern  horizon. 
Frederick  of  Hohenstauffen  had  been  called  to 
succeed  his  kinsman  in  the  Empire ;  he  was  now 
coming  over  the  Brenner  to  Roncaglia  with  a  mighty 
host.  Since  Calixtus  II.  rebellions  and  disorders  had 
weakened  the  Papacy  ;  while  Henry  V.'s  judicious 
exchange  of  the  crozier  for  the  sceptre  had  united 
German  prelates  with  German  princes  in  a  growing 
national  sentiment.  The  Roman  Law  would  speedily 
be  pitted  against  the  Roman  Pontiff.  Frederick  felt__ 
himself  every  inch  a  Caesar.  Valiant7  far^ooking, 
ambitious,  just  in  a  barbaric  and  cruel  fashion,  strong 
in  the  conviction  of  his  rights,  and  sure  that  he  held  , 

his  crown  from  God  alone,  he  entered  Italy  as  a  victory  '^^y^ 
wKo  came'^  set~tlTe^" world  straight.     His   prelate-  iy^\ju<u^^ 
vassals   carried    their    standards    before    him.     The  ^<j 
Republics  of  Lombardy   l_icked_the_dust.     Tortona  ^'Z'ff^^^ 
was  made  an  example.     From  Viterbo  Hadrian  sent  ^^^^/a^w„.,^k^ 
ambassadors   to  offer  him  the   Imperial   crown,  and 
demand  that  Arnold  of  Brescia  should  be  given  up. 
Arnold  must  have  seemed  a  mere  rebel  in  Frederick's 
eyes ;    he   consented.     The   democratic    leader   was 


262  ST.   BERNARD,   ABELARD,   ARNOLD 

carried  back  to  Rome,  and  delivered  into  the  hands 
of  Peter  the  Prefect  at  St.  Angelo. 

What  followed  has  been  variously  told.  But  we 
may  rely  upon  it  that  there  was  no  trial  of  an  excom- 
municated cleric ;  and  all  accounts  agree  that  the 
execution  was  despatched  with  haste  and  secrecy. 
Was  Arnold  hanged  and  burnt  like  Savonarola,  of 
whom  we  think  as  we  read  his  melancholy  fate? 
"  The  rope  strangles  him,  fire  and  water  carry  him 
away,"  says  the  German  story-teller — these  pre- 
cautions were  taken  lest  the  Romans  should  worship 
him  as  a  martyr  of  their  liberties.  With  his  ashes 
the  Republic  was  swept  into  the  Tiber.  Priesthood 
and--£jnpij£_Jxu3k_^«p.^_yb^ir^ne^  . 

Frederick,  from  this  hour,  was  not  to  enjoy  a 
moment's  peace  for  one  and  twenty  years.  The  next 
century  was  to  ring  with  the  calamities  of  Hohen- 
stauffen.  "  Look  on  my  GeriTian  nobles,"  cried 
Frederick  to  the  cowering  republicans,  who  came 
to  meet  him  at  Sutri  ;  "  these  are  my  Patricians  of 
Rome  ;  this  is  the  perpetual  Senate  ;  and  1  am  your 
sovereign."  By  way  of  proof,  when  he  received  the 
diadem  in  St.  Peter's  shortly  after,  his  soldiers  mas- 
sacred above  a  thousand  of  the  citizens  who  were 
complaining  that  they  had  been  excluded  from  every 
part  in  the  election.  They  now  got  their  share.  Bar- 
barossa  would  not  hear  of  an  independent  Italy. 
Neither  Hadrian  nor  his  Romans  would  bend  under 
the  German  yoke.  It  was  a  simple  issue,  to  be  decided 
by  the  fortune  of  war. 


XVII 


FREDERICK    REDBEARD   AND   HIS   TIME 


(1155-II77) 


GUELES  and  Ghibellines — names. gast^up  from  the 

deeps  of  hell,  cried  honest  Muratori — will  now  engage 

bur  attention  during  a  hundred  years  of  embittered 

strife.     In   such    a    contest    religion    had    no    direct 

interest  ;  the  Ghibelline  was  not  a  heretic,  nor  was 

the  Guelf  a  saint  ;  while,  as  regards  the  Papacy,  its 

line  of  action  was  determined   by  the  motives  which 

long   before   had   made  it  the  enemy  of  a  Lombard 

Kingdom  at  its  doors.     To  escape   from    Astolf  or\ 

Desiderius  it  was  that  the  Popes  had  called  in  their  j 

Prankish  allies,  and  created  the  Holy  Roman  Empire/ 

But    now   the    Empire    had    grown    to    be    a   peril. 

Frederick    the    Redbeard,  taking  homage,  not  only 

from  the    Northern    cities,  but    from   Capua,   laying 

claim  to  distant  Apulia,  and  grasping  with  a  mailed 

hand  the  inheritance  which  Matilda  had  bequeathed  to 

St,    Peter,   would    do    all,   and    more  than    all,    that 

Arnold   of  Brescia   had   dreamed    of   doing    against 

263 


iAcA^ 


264  FREDERICK  REDBEARD  AND  HIS    TIME 

the  Pope,  confounding  in  one  equal  servitude  Capito<^ 
and  Vatican,  Senate  and  Pontiff.     "  The  imprudence 
of  John  XII.,vvhen  hejnyited_jhe^erma££j^^ 
observes   an    historical  writer^  ^^^^'^   ^^^^^   Tint   exactly 
,       a   Guelf — w^   m^pn    V^jtnir^ — "  was    the    source    of 
^     .     those  calamities   which   weighed   upon  the  city  and 
,  ^''\^  the    Peninsula    for   hundreds    of  years."     Perhaps  it 
^    yr^ would  be  fair  to  remark  that  Italy  in  the  tenth  cen- 
^\      tury  had  fallen   into  barbarism,  while  in  the  twelfth 
its   commercial   Republics  were  evoking  a  new  and 
glorious  type  of  civilisation.     The  Othos  had  brought 
wath  them  peace  and  prosperity  ;  the  Hohenstauffen 
rained  from  their  German  clouds  an  iron  hail  that 
laid   the   land  waste.      Neither   on  medieval  nor  on 
rnodern  principles  could  they  benefit  a  race_to_which 
theyjvere_;nevitahly_02j2osed_.     Absentee  lords,  who 
maintained  their  power  by  predatory  incursions,  have 
been  the  ruin  of  Italy  ;  and  a  Teutonic  Hannibal — 
which  is  all  that  Frederick  ever  was  in  his  five  cam- 
paigns— had  little    right   to  judge    the    Pope  or  the 
Lombards  severely,  if  they  preferred  independence 
to  the  Imperial  chains. 

Thus  the  Guelfs  could  march  under  a  flag  inscribed 
with  religion  and  freedom,  mighty  names  with  which 
to  conjure ;  but  to  what  standard  did  the  Ghibellines 
appeal  ?  Otho,  the  Bishop  of  P>eising,  shall  teach  us. 
"  Then  you  could  behold,"  he  exclaims,  describing 
Frederick's  coronation,  "  our  men  striking,  slaying  the 
Romans  with  huge  strokes,  as  if  they  said, '  Take  now, 
Rome,  for  the  gold  of  Arabia  German  steel.  With 
such  coin  our  Prince  buys  his  crown.  Thus  is  the 
Empire  purchased  by  us  P'ranks.'  "     The  appeal  was 


BENEFICE   OR  BENEFIT?  265 

to  the  Strong  hand,  to  an  image  of  Caisar  fashioned 
by  jurists  out  of  their  freshly  opened  law  books,  and, 
as  Michelet  truly  observes,  their  "science  most  favour- 
able to  despotism." 

Could  there  be  a  less  even  match  ?  Yet  when 
Hadrian  IV.,  compelled  to  be  Frederick's  ostensible 
ally,  went  with  him  to  Tivoli,  and  the  Germans  had 
caught  their  usual  Roman  fever,  the  Pope  was  look- 
ing for  help  towards  Sicily  and  the  Normans.  This 
isle  of  Paradise  became  the  key  to  all  subsequent 
adventures  in  a  war  which  depended  as  much  on 
chicane  as  on  armed  battalions.  If  the  Emperor 
might  rule  south  and  north  of  Rome  at  once,  how 
was  the  Papacy  not  enclosed  in  his  meshes?  Hadrian 
had  excommunicated  King  William  of  the  Guiscard 
line.  No  sooner  was  Frederick  gone,  than  at  Bene- 
vento  he  invested  William  with  Naples  and  the  whole 
South,  acting  as  suzerain,  receiving  tribute  and  fealty 
from  the  Norman. 

Frederick  retorted  by  prohibiting  appeals  and 
pilgrimages  to  Rome.  At  Besancon  the  Emperor 
was  holding  a  Diet,  and  annexing  Burgundy.  The 
Papal  legates,  among  them  Cardinal  Roland,  after- 
wards Pope  Alexander  III.,  brought  letters  in 
which  Hadrian  echoed  the  language  of  Hilde- 
brand,  spoke  of  the  Empire  as  a  benefice,  and 
himself  as  conferring  it.  P>ederick's  rage  knew  no 
bounds.  Count  Wittelsbach  would  have  struck 
Roland  dead  with  his  sword.  An  Imperial  manifesto 
came  out,  charging  the  Curia  with  venality  and 
sacrilege  ;  it  was  answered  with  no  less  warmth ; 
but    the    Pope    softened    his    Latin    "  benefice "    to 


266         FREDERICK  REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 

"  benefit,"  for  Barbarossa  was  hurling  upon  Italy  a 
host  from  all  his  dominions.  The  passes  were  choked. 
Milan  dared  to  withstand  him  ;  Milan  was  compelled 
to  submit.  A  kind  of  Bearsark  cruelty  was  natural 
in  Frederick,  and  his  legislation  seemed  not  less 
passionate  than  his  warfare.  In  1158  the  lawyers  at 
Roncaglia  recorded  as  for  everlasting  remembrance 
his  claims  over  clergy  and  laity.  He  awarded  the 
vast  inheritance  of  Matilda  to  his  uncle,  the  Bavarian 
Guelf.  Negotiations  went  on  with  Hadrian,  but  they 
degenerated  into  personalities,  or  assumed  that  Con- 
stantine  was  lord  of  Silvester.  The  undeniable 
corruption,  rapacity,  and  worldly  pomp  of  Cardinals 
or  Bishops  furnished  the  Emperor  with  a  stinging 
text.  Hadrian  threw  off  his  guard  ;  demanded  back 
the  Eternal  City,  the  Matildan  legacy,  and  tribute 
even  from  Frederick  for  Ferrara.  The  reply  was, 
"By  God's  grace  I  am  Emperor  of  Rome."  Prelates 
and  princes,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Roman  Senate, 
were  leagued  with  this  new  Charlemagne.  Then 
Hadrian  from  Anagni  prepared  to  excommunicate 
and  depose  him  ;  the  Lombard  League  answered  the 
Imperial.  But  in  11 59  the  English  Pope  had  done 
with  fighting.  He  left  it  to  his  successor.  Who  now 
would  step  into  the  hottest  front  of  this  battle,  and 
oppose  in  Barbarossa  "  the  arts  of  a  statesman,  the 
valour  of  a  soldier,  and  the  cruelty  of  a^tyrant''  ? 

An  old  situation  brings  familiar  tactics  into  play. 
Hadrian,  had  thought  of  deposing  Frederick  ; 
Frederick  might  acknowledge,  if  he  did  not  create, 
an  Antipope.  Fourteen  Cardinals  chose  the  Guelf 
Roland,  and  invested  him  with  the  "  mighty  mantle," 


LOMBARD  LEAGUE  26/ 

as  Dante  calls  it.  Octavian,  the  Ghibelline,  plucked 
it  from  his  shoulders,  was  acclaimed  by  two  other 
Cardinals,  and  borne  in  state  by  a  hired  soldiery 
with  drawn  swords.  He  called  himself  Victor  IV. 
The  people  appeared  to  welcome  him,  while  Roland, 
Alexander  III.,  lay  in  hiding.  Both  candidates  soon 
left  the  city  and  were  consecrated  each  as  supreme 
Pontiff.  Frederick  summoned  them  to  Pavia ;  but 
when  Alexander  would  not  come  he  acknowledged 
Victor.  Excommunications  were  exchanged  ;  the 
Emperor  was  posted  up  as  a  schismatic  in  every  town 
of  the  Lombard  League,  now  bent  on  securing  its 
.independence.  Christendom  fell  in  twain.  While 
the  Empire  held  to  Octavian,  the  Western  Kings 
naturally  took  their  stand  against  him.  Alexander 
might  sing  Mass  in  the  Lateran.  But  precedent  must 
be  followed  ;  a  Pontiff  in  distress  could  find  no  better 
refuge  than  P^rance.  He  arrived  at  Courcy  on  the 
Loire,  was  greeted  by  Louis  and  our  Henry  II.,  and 
stayed  there  three  years. 

Meanwhile,  Frederick  was  once  more  on  Italian 
soil,  and  his  arms  made  an  end  of  Milan  (1162). 
"  The  buildings  of  that  stately  capital,"  says  Gibbon, 
"  were  razed  to  the  ground  ;  three  hundred  hostages 
were  sent  into  Germany  ;  and  the  inhabitants  were 
dispersed  into  four  villages,  under  the  yoke  of  the 
jnflexible  conqueror."  Victor  passed  away,  Guido  of 
Crema  clutched  his  falling  mantle  at  vvhich  the  Roman 
boys  had  mocked.  The  stars  in  their  courses  were  now 
fighting  for  Alexander.  For  his  Lombard  allies  were 
to  restore  Milan,  and  Thomas  a  Becket,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  was  to  win  by  martydom  the  cause  of 


268  FREDERICK  REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 

Church  immunities,  which  seemed  to  be  at  its  last 
gasp  all   over   Europe. 

Of  Saxon  England  we  may  affirm  that  it  never 
had  a  quarrel  with  the  Holy  See,  or  with  its  clergy. 
Kings  and  queens  ruled  over  monasteries,  but  as 
penitents,  not  by  virtue  of  their  sceptre.  The 
Normans,  however,  a  shrewd,  litigious,  and  hardly^ 
cleyout  race,  were  willing  enough  to  draw  their  swords 
in  defence  of  the  Church,  but  resolute  in  keeping  it 
subject  to  the  Crown.  Alexander  II.,  no  doubt  by 
Hildebrand's  advice,  had  sent  William  the  Conqueror 
a  consecrated  banner  and  given  him  leave  to  invade 
England.  But  William  paid  no  acknowledgment  to 
Rome,  and  his  intercourse  with  Gregory  VII.  was  on 
the  loftiest  terms.  He  remodelled  the  Church  ;  his 
successors  despoiled  or  corrupted  it.  St.  Anselm  fled 
before  the  face  of  Rufus  ;  in  dealing  with  Henry  I., 
he  was  no  less  tarmented  but  something  more 
fortunate.  Henry  11.  accepted  from  Pope  Hadrian 
the  commission,  which  reads  like  a  crusading  Bull,  to 
reduce  Ireland  beneath  his  own  sway  and  that  of  the 
Christian  religion.  But  Hadrian  must  have  been 
aware  that  Henry,  his  Queen  Eleanor,  and  his  royal 
house,  were  tainted  with  every  vice,  passion,  and 
crime.  Henry's  character  is  by  no  means  doubtful — 
furious,  cunning^_unstable,  a  compound  qfjust  and 
cruelty,  he  brought  up  children  in  his  own  image  and 
li"keness."  His  Normans  had  all  the  vices  of  the 
Greeks  except  cowardice,  all  the  Teutonic  rage  with- 
out its  intemperance.  Not  inferior  to  Barbarossa  in 
resources  or  ability,  by  far  the  most  powerful  King  of 
his    time,   Henry,  like  the   Emperor,  could   not  but 


BECKET  ARCHBISHOP  269 

desire  to  make  of  the  feudal  system  an  absolute 
monarchy ;  and  where  one  set  up  the  Roman  Law  in 
order  to  stand  above  it,  the  other  founded  himself  on 
our  English  Common  Law,  or  the  Customs  of  the 
Realm.  But  liberty  in  any  modern  sense  was  un- 
known to  the  twelfth  century ;  and  this  memorable 
contest  had  in  view  the  privileges  of  an  order,  the 
prerogatives  of  a  King.  In  more  specious  language 
Herbert  of  Bosham  contrasts  "  the  peace  of  our 
sovereign  lord  "  with  the  freedom  which  a  clergy,  not 
always  decent  in  behaviour,  enjoyed  to  its  own  detri- 
ment. Acknowledged  evils  might  demand  a  remedy  ; 
but  the  Plantagenets  aimed  at  despotism. 

To  the  virtues,  energ)',  and  accredited  miracles  of 
such  men  as  Hildebrand,  Damiani,  Anselm,  Bernard, 
the  Church  owed  its  victories  in  the  century  past. 
These  were  Saints  from  their  cradle.  A  converted 
worldling  was  to  be  the  instrument  of  Henry's  defeat, 
He  had  made  his  Chancellor  an  Archbishop,  who 
knows  with  what  sinister  design  ?  The  Archbishop, 
on  whom  Canterbury  monks  had  looked  with  no 
favour,  suddenly  put  them  to  the  blush  by  his 
austerities,  prayers,  and  almsgiving ;  he  was  perfect, 
according  to  the  pattern  of  medieval  sanctity,  in  his 
life  and  conversation.  Yet  there  had  been  something 
to  reform.  Thomas  a  Becket  was  of  Norman  descent, 
singularly  handsome,  accomplished  in  chivalry  and 
courtesy,  brought  up  in  the  house  of  Archbishop 
Theobald,  and  thence  despatched  on  errands  of  study 
or  diplomatic  interest  to  Rome,  Bologna,  Auxerre. 
He  had  gained  legatine  powers  for  his  patron  ;  he 
liad  induced  Eugenius    HL  to  reject   King  Stephen 


270  FREDERICK  REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 

as  a  usurper.  Though  in  deacon's  orders  only,  he 
was  laden  with  preferments  ;  as  Chancellor  his 
magnificence  or  prodigality,  his  pride  and  eagerness 
to  be  admired,  are  dwelt  upon  by  John  of  Salisbury 
as  blemishes  in  a  man  who  still  kept  his  clerical  vows. 
Now  he  resigned  the  Great  Seal.  At  Tours,  in  1163, 
where  Alexander  welcomed  him  with  distinction,  he 
concurred  in  putting  down  the  schism  and  in  assert- 
ing the  privileges  of  his  order  and  the  sacredness  of 
its  possessions.  Next  year  he  was  excommunicating 
a  royal  vassal  ;  he  was  in  conflict  with  the  high  line 
of  the  De  Clares  ;  to  feudal  encroachments  he  would 
oppose  the  Church's  censures  ;  nor  was  he  a  whit  less 
haughty  and  determined  in  his  new  office  than  he 
had  been  in  the  old.  Compromise  between  two  such 
antagonists  as  himself  and  the  King  might  seem 
impossible.  They  could  but  win  and  lose  alternately. 
A  Parliament  was  held  at  Westminster  in  October, 
1 163.  Gross  abuses  were  alleged  as  taking  place  in 
the  archdeacons' courts,  and  Henry  required  that  clerics 
charged  with  crime  should  be  degraded  from  their 
office  and  given  up  to  the  secular  arm.  The  Bishops 
refused.  Would  they,  at  least,  observe  the  Customs 
of  the  kingdom  ?  "  Saving  my  order,"  replied  the 
Archbishop.  This  amounted  to  defiance.  Parlia- 
ment was  dissolved  ;  severe  measures  followed.  At 
the  Bishops'  entreaty  Thomas  relinquished  the 
obnoxious  word.  But  when,  at  Clarendon,  he  saw 
these  Customs  written  down,  he  wavered.  It  was  too 
late..  He  took  the  oath  and  his  episcopal  brethren 
did  in  like  manner.  Sixteen  statutes  reduced  the 
clergy  under  the  Common  Law  ;  forbade  prelates  to 


CONSTITUTIONS    OF  CLARENDON 


271 


quit  the  realm  without  leave  from  the  King  ;  carried 
all  disputes  touching  benefices  into  his  Courts ; 
allowed  no  excommunication  of  his  officers  or  tenants 


HEXRV    II.,    KI.\(;   OF    ENGLAND 

[From  an  engraving  in  the  British  Museinn.) 


in  chief  till  information  had  been  laid  before  him  ; 
and  while  encouraging  appeals  from  the  Archbishop 
to  the  Crown,    allowed  none  to   Rome  without  the 


2/2  FREDERICK   REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 

King's  licence.  If  we  compare  with  these  enactments 
the  famous  law  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  transferred  to 
him  and  his  successors  the  supreme  government  of 
the  English  Church,  we  shall  be  startled  at  the 
resemblance.  Thomas  a  Becket  had  surrendered 
almost  as  much  as  Thomas  Cranmer  surrendered 
afterwards,  when  the  King  became  Pope  in  all  his 
dominions  (i  164-1534). 

He  had  sworn  with  no  mental  reservation — equally 
without  reserve  he  did  penance  for  his  oath  and 
sought  the  Pope's  forgiveness.  It  was  granted.  Yet 
Alexander  would  not  offend  Henry,  and  he  allowed 
Roger  of  York  to  exercise  legatine  powers  in  the 
province  of  Canterbury.  The  Pope,  all  through,  is 
politic,  never  on  the  King's  side,  but  tremulously 
afraid  lest  he  should  make  common  cause  with 
Barbarossa.  The  English  Bishops  took  part  against 
their  Metropolitan.  On  that  bitter  day  of  North- 
ampton when  he  redeemed  his  fault  heroically,  Becket 
was  forsaken,  reviled,  condemned  for  perjury  and 
treason ;  he  sat  alone  in  the  open  hall,  and  his 
Bishops  urged  him  to  resign  if  he  would  not  be 
deposed.  He  appealed  to  Rome ;  passed  through  a 
storm  of  reproaches  ;•  fled  over  the  fens  of  the  east ; 
and  at  length  crossed  to  Flanders.  He  was  received 
by  Louis  VII.  at  Compiegne.  His  messengers  ob- 
tained an  interview  with  the  Pope  at  Sens  before 
Henry's  were  admitted. 

Alexander  must,  in  any  case,  have  annulled  the 
Constitutions  of  Clarendon.  He  did  so  in  public 
Consistory.  The  Archbishop  tendered  to  him  his 
resignation  ;  it  was   not  accepted.     Henry  banished 


BECKET  IN  EXILE  2/3 

his  dependents  and  kinsmen  ;  Thomas,  in  mortified 
retirement  at  Pontigny,  drew  the  eyes  of  Europe 
on  his  sufferings.  Barbarossa  and  the  Plantagenet 
agreed  at  Wiirzburg  (1165)  to  join  their  forces  and 
set  up  Paschal  III.  in  place  of  Alexander;  but  the 
traditional  policy  of  England  could  not  be  changed  ; 
all  this  proved  to  be  summer  lightning.  Becket  in 
the  same  year  cited  the  King's  Ministers  into  his 
court,  condemned  the  sixteen  statutes,  and  put  their 
defenders  under  interdict  at  Vezelay  ;  his  action  pro- 
voked Henry  to  madness,  and  Pontigny  could  no 
longer  serve  as  a  refuge  to  the  exile.  He  went  to 
live  at  Sens.  Alexander  had  now  returned  to  Rome  ; 
and  John  of  Oxford  with  letters  from  the  Bishops, 
with  vast  sums  for  the  Guelfs  in  Italian  cities  and  for 
the  Frangipani  in  the  Forum,  persuaded  the  Pope's 
advisers  to  curb  this  headlong  Archbishop.  That  the 
Pope  himself  was  bribed  has  never  been  asserted. 
But  he  suspended  the  acts  of  Becket  by  his  direct 
authority,  and  appointed  two  Cardinals  to  decide  the 
whole  matter.  Thomas  exclaimed,  "If  this  be  true, 
the  Pope  has  strangled  the  Church."  His  words, 
always  strong,  grew  exceedingly  bitter. 

The  issue  was  determined  by  great  events  now 
happening  \\\  Italy.  Milan  had  been  restored  by  the 
Lombards  in  1165.  Frederick,  in  his  fatal  year, 
1 167,  came  on  with  a  powerful  army  towards  Rome. 
The  Romans  imprudently  chose  this  moment  to 
attack  their  neighbours  of  Tusculum.  They  were 
defeated  by  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence ;  and 
Barbarossa  took  St.  Peter's  after  an  obstinate 
defence.      He  was  crowned  by   his   Antipope   in   a 

19 


274  FREDERICK   REDBEARD   AND  HIS    TIME 

sanctuary  reeking  with  blood ;  his  troops  had  cut  their 
way  to  the  very  altar,  slaying  as  they  went.  Alex- 
ander escaped  in  disguise.  Yet  a  fearful  vengeance 
fell  upon  these  sacrilegious  invaders ;  their  army 
began  to  waste  by  some  mysterious  and  rapid  disease 
which  swept  off  the  martial  prelates  and  their  men 
between  morning  and  evening.  Barbarossa  retreated  ; 
Lombardy  in  all  its  towns  except  Pavia  cast  away  his 
yoke.  He  fled  over  the  Alps,  and  what  was  left  of  his 
army  followed  him. 

It  was  an  awe-striking  catastrophe.  "  The  angel 
of  the  Lord,"  exclaimed  Thomas,  "  had  smitten 
Sennacherib  and  all  his  host."  With  confidence  the 
Archbishop  went  forward  to  meet  the  Cardinals  near 
Gisors.  Never  had  he  been  more  contemptuous  of 
the  "  Customs,"  more  disdainful  towards  those  "  slaves 
in  the  old  comedy,"  the  Bishops  of  England.  Henry, 
in  tears,  besought  the  Legates  to  rid  him  of  this  thorn 
in  his  side.  And  they,  bribed  or  diplomatic,  suspended 
his  action  till  next  Martinmas,  a  legal  year  (1167- 
1168).  Even  the  Pope  from  Benevento  approved. 
Becket  wrote  to  him  in  terms  of  extreme  violence, 
sparing  neither  the  Curia  nor  Alexander  himself. 
The  King  of  France  added  that  such  inhibitions  were 
a  betrayal  of  the  Church.  Still,  the  Roman  policy 
persuaded  to  an  attempt,  fruitless  and  exasperating, 
at  reconciliation  in  the  meeting  of  Montmirail.  As 
fortune  favoured  the  Guelfs,  whom  Henry  kept  alive 
with  subsidies  even  in  Rome,  the  Pope  issued  a  new 
legatine  commission  to  Gratian,  the  stern  Decretalist, 
and  Vivian,  who  was  not  so  tainted  with  venality  as 
the  average  official.     They  discussed  whole  days  with 


RETURNS    TO   CANTERBURY  2^$ 

Henry ;  concerning  whom  said  Vivian,  "  Never  did 
I  know  a  man  to  be  such  a  liar."  The  Interdict 
threatened  by  Becket  was  telHng  on  EngHsh  public 
opinion.  In  November,  1170,  he  published  it 
solemnly.  The  King  met  this  tremendous  charge 
with  proclamations  of  high  treason,  confiscation,  for- 
bidding of  appeals  outside  the  kingdom,  all  to  little 
purpose.  And  yet  Alexander  would  still  absolve  the 
Bishops  whom  their  Metropolitan  laid  under  censure  ; 
he  did  not  forbid  the  coronation  of  Prince  Henry  by 
Roger  of  York,  who  thus  invaded  the  rights  of  the 
Church  of  Canterbury.  No  one  acquainted  with  the 
facts  can  maintain  that  the  Roman  authorities  sup- 
ported their  Archbishop.  He  was  indeed  to  triumph, 
but  not  by  interdicts. 

After  much  confused  negotiation,  it  was  whispered 
to  the  King  that  Thomas  in  his  See  at  Canterbury 
would  be  less  formidable  than  Thomas  an  exile 
scattering  censures  from  abroad.  Henry  was  capable 
of  the  utmost  duplicity  in  word  and  conduct  ;  he 
made  an  ambiguous  treaty  at  Fretteville  with  his 
enemy,  in  which  neither  pronounced  the  name  of 
Clarendon.  To  one  pledge  of  honour  the  King  could 
not  bring  himself  ;  he  never  would  give  Becket  the 
kiss  of  peace.  On  December  i,  1 170,  six  years  from 
his  flight,  the  Archbishop  landed  at  Sandwich.  He 
rode  in  splendid  procession  to  Canterbury  and  made 
a  progress  to  London.  The  people  had  been  all 
along  ardent  in  his  support.  Not  so  the  holders  of 
Church  property,  whom  he  was  now  going  to  press  for 
restitution  ;  and,  while  he  seemed  more  of  a  sovereign 
in  the  Kingdom  than  his  master,  the  excommunicated 


276 


FREDERICK   REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 


prelates  were  at  Bayeux,  imploring  Henry's  protec- 
tion. "  While  Thomas  lives,  you  will  have  no  peace," 
said  one  of  them.  He  broke  out  into  the  words  of 
doom,  "  Who  will  rid  me  of  this  insolent  priest  ? " 
The  four  murderers,  Fitzurse,  Tracy,  Moreville,  Britto, 
set  out  on  their  never-to-be-forgotten  errand,  crossed 


ARMS   OF   THE   SEE   OF   CANTERBURY,    SHOWING   THE    PALLIUM. 


the  Channel,  rode  to  Canterbury,  and  arrived  at  the 
cathedral  as  Vespers  were  singing,  on  December  29, 
1 1 70. 

The  passion  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  which  scattered  his 
brains  on  the  floor  of  his  own  Cathedral,  is  perhaps  the 
most  dramatic  episode  in  English  history.  After  seven 
hundred  and  thirty  years  we  can  see  it  all  with  our 


ST.    THOMAS    THE   MARTYR  2/7 

eyes  as  it  was  enacted  on  that  dark  winter's  evening. 
This  champion  of  his  order  and  the  people,  a  saint  in 
self-denial,  an  Athanasius  against  the  world,  who  had 
overcome  his  King  by  sheer  tenacity  of  principle,  and 
conquered  the  venality,  the  waverings,  of  Cardinals 
in  Rome  and  Bishops  in  England  ;  at  whose  feet  the 
country  lay  prostrate  in  a  trance  of  worship  and 
religious  dread  ;  shone  forth  in  one  moment  with  a 
martyr's  crown.  The  vision  filled  every  imagination, 
the  tragedy  melted  all  hearts.  Within  three  days 
miracles  of  healing  began  to  be  reported  from  a 
distance.  They  multiplied  as  years  went  on  ;  the 
pilgrimage  to  Canterbury  did  not  yield  in  renown  to 
Rome  or  Compostella  ;  and  Alexander  canonised, 
not  unwillingly,  the  defender  of  Church  liberties  who 
had  poured  out  on  himself  rebukes  the  most  scathing 
nor  wholly  undeserved.  In  his  death  Thomas  had 
Wbdued  friends  as  well  as  enemies.  But  it  is  only^ 
the  historian  who,  looking  back,  can  perceive  that  the 
great  popular  saint  and  churchman  had  delayed  the 
Reformation  in  England  by  more  than  three  hundred 
\(ears. 

On  Henry  the  recoil  was  crushing  and  instan- 
taneous. He  fell  under  the  weight  of  a  universal 
execration  ;  he  was  Herod  or  Julian  ;  and  Alexander 
would  not  suffer  his  name  to  be  pronounced  in  his 
hearing.  Interdict  on  all  his  dominions  was  averted 
only  by  abject  surrender  at  Avranches  of  his  Customs 
of  Clarendon,  and  no  less  abject  pretence  of  grief 
over  Becket's  martyrdom.  His  Queen  stirred  up 
revolt ;  his  sons  conspired  against  their  father.  As 
early   as    1171     the    proudest   of   Plantagenets    was 


278 


FREDERICK  REDBEARD  AND   HIS    TIME 


writing  these  words  to  Rome  :  "  I  and  my  eldest  son, 
King  Henry,  swear  that  we  will  receive  and  hold 
the  Kingdom  of  England  from  our  Lord,  Pope 
Alexander,  and  his  Catholic  successors."  The  land 
was  to  lie  under  the  obligations  of  feudal  law  ;  would 
not  the  Pope,  cried  this  broken  despot,  come  to  the 
defence  of  England  his  fief?  Yet  even  that  humilia- 
tion did  not  suffice.  Henry  had  recourse  to  the 
Saint's  intercession  ;  with  bare  and  bleeding  feet  he 


v>«^ 


r-:^ 


'^Wny^, 


MEETING    OF   ALEXANDER    III.    AND   ZIANI,    DOGE   OF   VENICE, 

A.D.  II 77.     {Bassano.) 


crept  into  Canterbury  ;  his  back  was  scourged  by 
the  monks  ;  and  St.  Thomas  appeared  by  the  sudden 
deliverance  which  followed,  to  be  his  surest  friend. 
Yet  the  conclusion  of  his  reign  was  inglorious. 
Richard  drove  his  father  in  headlong  flight  from  Le 
Mans ;  he  sought  mercy,  and  learned  that  his 
favourite  son  John  was  false  like  the  rest  of  them. 
Henry  cursed  God  and  died.  Doubtless  the  clergy 
exulted,  "  So  let  all  Thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord  ; 


ITALY  AGAINST  BARBAROSSA 


279 


but  let  them  that  love  Thee  shine  as  the  sun  at  his 
rising  ! " 

Years    before    this    catastrophe,    the     fierce    and 
terrible  Barbarossa  had  been  made  to  stoop,  not  in 


ALEXANDER    III.    BESTOWS    A   SWORD   ON    THE    DOGE. 

{Bassano.) 


a  dead  enemy's  presence,  but  at  the  knees  of  the 
living,  the  triumphant  Alexander.  Strong  in  his 
alliances  with  Sicily,  Byzantium,  and  above  all  with 
the  Lombard  cities,  now  banded  from  Venice  to  the 


280  FREDERICK  REDBEARD   AND   HIS    TIME 

Alps  and  the  Apennines  in  a  league  of  freedom,  the 
Pope  saw  his  rival  Antipopes  die  or  sink  in  disgrace. 
Though  he  dared  not  live  in  Rome,  yet  he  was  hailed 
as  the  saviour  of  Italy  ;  to  this  day  the  strong 
fortress  of  Alessandria  which  bears  his  name  is  a 
memorial  of  the  federation  between  Papal  claims 
and  popular  franchises.  Frederick  made  overtures  of 
peace  ;  they  could  not  be  entertained.  Milan  rose 
from  its  ashes.  The  Imperial  squadrons  were  defeated 
at  Cassano,  repulsed  before  Ancona.  At  last,  after 
an  attempt  upon  Alessandria,  came  the  fatal  and 
glorious  combat  of  Legnano  in  which  the  Lombards 
broke  his  chivalry  and  Frederick  himself  disappeared 
from  the  field  in  a  cloud  of  fugitives  (May  29, 
1 1 76).  He  had  delivered  his  hardest  blow  and  was 
beaten. 

Early  next  March,  after  secret  stipulations  on  both 
sides,  Alexander  sailed  up  the  Adriatic  in  a  Sicilian 
fleet,  entered  the  Lagoon  and  was  received  at  St. 
Mark's  by  Ziani,  Doge  of  Venice.  Legends  hang 
about  this  voyage  and  the  incidents  that  followed 
close  upon  it.  In  the  Ducal  Palace  we  may  study 
the  supposed  expedition  of  Ziani  to  attack  the 
Emperor's  fleet  at  Salboro,  the  fight  and  the  victory ; 
but  of  these  things  no  chronicle  near  the  time  bears 
any  record.  Venice  had  the  honour  of  ending  this 
twenty  years'  struggle.  Frederick  arrived  at  Chiog- 
giaon  July  23,  1177  ;  he  renounced  the  schism  which 
he  had  kept  so  long  alive,  and  took  his  absolution  from 
Alexander's  three  Bishops  sent  to  meet  him.  The 
next  morning  he  passed  up  to  St.  Mark's  where,  in 
the    splendid    vestibule,    Alexander    himself    sat   in 


THE   MEETING   IN    VENICE  28 1 

state :  around  him  stood  the  envoys  of  England, 
France,  Sicily,  and  the  Free  Cities,  with  a  crowd  of 
nobles  and  dignified  churchmen.  The  Emperor 
drew  near,  flung  aside  his  cloak,  and  bent  his  knee  to  j 
the  porphyry  slab  which  testifies  yet  to  this  great 
act  of  homage.  With  tears  and  the  kiss  of  peace 
Alexander  raised  him.  The  legend  puts  a  muttered 
phrase  on  the  lips  of  both.  "  Not  to  thee,  but  to 
Peter  !  "  said  Frederick.  And  the  Pope,  "  To  me  as 
to  Peter ! "  An  idle  tale,  not  without  significance. 
Te  Deum  was  chanted  ;  Frederick  held  the  Pope's 
stirrup  ;  truce,  converted  six  years  later  to  an  abiding 
peace,  crowned  the  meeting.  In  1183  at  Constance 
twenty-four  Lombard  cities  had  won  their  freedom. 


XVIII         .     .  ^ 

ENTER   INNOCENT    III.   AND    FREDERICK    OF    SICILY 


^U-     Z^'^-i*-^^^^^^ 


(II77-I2I4) 


Victorious  but  worn  out  with  exile,  battles,  and 
marches,  Alexander  inscribed  the  results  of  his  long 
day  in  the  Third  Lateran  Council,  11 79.  Hohen- 
stauffen  was  down ;  the  Papacy  had  got  back  its 
capital  and  its  Patrimony.  But  the  Guelfs  had  not 
annihilated  the  Ghibellin.es.  who  swarmed  in  Italian 
cities  ;  and  fresh  denunciations  of  Cathari,  Paterines, 
usurers ;  of  Christians  wicked  enough  to  furnish 
Saracens  with  arms  ;  and  of  proud  prelates  living  in 
secular  pomp,  warn  us  that  if  Feudalism  had  lost  its 
purchase  on  ecclesiastical  rights,  there  was  a  yet 
more  fearful  enemy  in  front  who  would  not  want  for 
auxiliaries.  After  an  interval  of  barbarism  the 
human  mind  was  stirring  once  more.  And  in  con- 
trast or  opposition  to  Bishops  that  reigned  like 
princes  with  hosts  of  retainers,  with  hawks  and 
hounds— to  say  nothing  of  worse  extravagance — 
simple  men,  weavers  or  merchants,  began  to  preach 
Apostolic  poverty,  to  ask  whether  a  dissolute  minister 


282 


MEDIEVAL   PROTESTANTS  283 

could  give  true  Sacraments,  or  the  Mass  of  a  bad 
priest  should  be  attended  by  the  Lord's  faithful  ; 
whether  all  good  men  and  women  were  not  priests  ; 
and  whether  Rome  was  not  the  Babylon  of  Revela- 
tions. Tanchelin  of  Antwerp  had  been  quelled  by 
St.  Norbert  at  Utrecht.  Eudes  from  Bretagne  had 
been  cast  into  prison  by  Suger,  the  Abbot-Chan- 
cellor of  Louis  VI L  At  Vezelay  men  called 
Publicans  were  condemned,  and  seven  of  them 
burnt  for  denying  the  Sacraments  and  the  priest- 
hood. Along  the  Rhone  a  movement  was  spreading 
which  combined  austerity  of  life  with  study  of  the 
Bible ;  its  preachers  were  disciples  or  forerunners  of 
Peter  Waldo,  and  as  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  Manichees,  or  Paulicians, 
who  passed  like  a  cloud  of  locusts  from  the  mountains 
of  Armenia  by  the  way  of  Thrace  and  Bulgaria  into 
Italy,  and  onwards  to  Languedoc,  which  they  had 
made  their  Judea. 

When  Alexander  III.  ended  his  course,  Europe 
was  trembling  under  these  spiritual  convulsions, 
which  could  not  be  quieted  until  measures  of  unex- 
ampled severity  had  been  taken.  Lucius  III.  repeated 
the  Lateran  censures  at  Verona,  but  neither  Mani- 
chees nor  Waldensians  were  daunted.  Medieval 
Protestantism  was  now  born.  The  Poor  Men  of 
Lyons  anticipated  Wyclif  But  for  the  moment  all 
eyes  were  turned  to  Palestine,  divided  among  quarrel- 
some feudal  barons,  menaced  by  the  rising  power  of 
a  Kurdish  Knight,  Saladin.  He,  after  putting  down 
the  Fatimite  heretics  in  Egypt,  had  slain  or  captured 
almost  all  the  Christian  peers  of  the  Holy  Land  with 


284  INNOCENT   III.    AND   FREDERICK  II. 

their  King  at  Tiberias  and  entered  Jerusalem  (1187). 
The  shameful  event  was  ascribed,  not  without  cause, 
to  Henry  II.  and  Louis  VII.,  who  had  taken  the  cross 
but  stayed  at  home  to  fight  their  own  wretched 
battles.  A  fresh  Crusade  was  proclaimed.  Richard, 
the  least  English  of  heroes,  was  Angevin  and  Gascon. 
He  plundered,  sold,  and  borrowed  for  this  tempting 
enterprise.  He  made  an  effort  to  get  hold  of  Sicily 
on  the.  way  ;  he  possessed  himself  of  Cyprus;  and 
at  Acre  he  behaved  with  all  the  fury  of  an  Orlando 
and  the  insolence  of  a  Norman  Achilles.     His  rival 

J^^and  comrade,  the  mean-spirited  Philip  Augustus,  did 
nothing  and  went  home  again.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
from  every  European  nation  flocked  to  the  siege  of 
Acre^  which  has  been  well  termed  the  medieval  siege 
of  Troy.     But  not  all  these  hosts  with  all  their  cruelty 

^-\  and  chivalry  could  tear  Jerusalem  from  the  grasp  of 
Saladin.  He  saw  them  quarrel  in  their  tents,  die  of 
the  plague,  or  disappear  into  the  West  again.  This 
was  the  last  genujne_CriLsade.,___lt_accomplished  no^ 
part  of  its  design.  Frederick  Barbarossa,  who  had 
set  out  before  these  Kings,  displayed  his  ancient 
courage  when  he  met  the  Greeks,  and  still  more  the 
Turks,  whom  he  vanquished  with  Homeric  slaughter 
at  Iconium.  But  in  crossing  a  torrent  of  Pisidia,  the 
Emperor  was  drowned  ;  and  his  people,  who  could 
never  believe  it,  translated  him  in  their  mythology  to 
the  subterranean  vaults  of  Kyfhauser.  There  the 
Redbeard  slumbers  with  his  Paladins  until  the 
Armageddon  battle,  which  they  call  the  Day  of  the 
Birch  Tree,  shall  awaken  him  and  his  mail-clad 
knights,  to  save  the  Fatherland. 


HENRY    Vr.    MARRIES    CONSTANCE  285 

Frederick  had  pacified  Germany,  but  not  given  up 
his  claim  to  be  lord  of  the  Italians.  He  was  on  terms 
of  extreme  tension  with  Urban  III.,  a  Milanese,  who 
held  the  Papacy  without  resigning  the  See  of  Milan. 
But  Barbarossa  had  taken  a  step  which  brought  in  its 
train  a  war  of  seventy  years,  and  entailed  ruin  upon  his 
house  and  dynasty.  In  a  sixth  expedition  over  the 
Alps,  he  had  his  son  Henry  married  to  Constance,  the 
heiress  of  the  Sicilian  throne,  whom  he  tore  from  a 
convent  and  compelled  to  break  her  vows.  This 
meant  nothing  less  than  to  make  the  Pope  his  ever- 
lasting vassal.  Urban  protested  in  vain.  He  would 
not  crown  Henry  at  Monza  ;  violent  disputes  were 
the  consequence.  Then  Pope  and  Emperor  died. 
Clement  III.  made  a  precarious  treaty  with  his  always 
turbulent  Romans,  and  after  a  couple  of  years  was 
followed  by  Coelestine  III.  In  the  neighbourhood  of 
Rome  appeared  Henry  VI.,  with  Queen  Constance  and 
an  army.  The  Pope  consented  to  crown  him,  on  con- 
dition, added  the  Roman  populace,  that  Tusculum 
should  be  destroyed  and  its  inhabitants  massacred. 
Henry  let  them  work  their  will;  Tusculum  was  no  more. 
It  is  only  in  such  merciless  feuds  between  city  and 
city,  nay,  between  one  quarter  of  a  city  and  another, 
that  the  Italian  genius  of  the  Middle  Age  can  be 
adequately  studied.  The  Popes  had  conceived  a 
certain  world-policy  on  a  scale  which  was  becoming 
ever  more  magnificent.  But  the  vision  of  Popular 
Rome  did  not  reach  beyond  Tusculum. 

All  accounts  picture  Henry  VI.  as  a  man  of  blood 
and  iron.  Clement  III.  had  dared  to  invest  the 
illegitimate    Tancred    with    Queen    Constance's  do- 


286  INNOCENT  III.    AND   FREDERICK  II. 

minions.  This  Norman  chief  overran  Sicily,  invaded 
Naples,  took  Constance  at  Salerno,  but  when 
Ccelestine  interceded  he  sent  her  with  gifts  to  her 
husband.  The  Pope  might  with  as  good  ground 
have  written  to  the  Emperor  on  behalf  of  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion  whom  he  held  a  captive,  bought  from 
Leopold  of  Austria ;  but  he  never  did  so.  When 
Richard  was  set  free,  excommunication  struck 
Leopold  at  length  and  he  did  penance ;  it  was  the 
fashion  of  the  time  to  plunge  into  deepest  guilt  with 
the  hope  of  repenting  on  the  death-bed.  Meanwhile, 
Henry  VI.  traversed  Italy  with  an  invincible  host. 
He  passed  by  Rome,  went  on  to  Messina,  entered 
Palermo,  and  took  the  homage  of  young  William, 
whose  father,  Tancred  the  Conqueror,  was  now  dead. 
On  some  pretext,  true  or  false,  Henry  began  a 
terrible  proscription  at  Christmas,  1194.  The  loftiest 
heads  in  the  Island  were  struck  down.  Prelates  and 
nobles  were  hanged,  burnt,  mutilated.  Queen 
Sibylla  and  her  daughters  were  thrown  into  prison  ; 
William  underwent  dishonours  worse  than  death. 
It  was  remarked  with  shuddering  horror  that  on  the 
day  when  Henry  opened  this  sanguinary  campaign, 
his  Queen  gave  birth  at  Jesi  to  a  child,  who  should 
be  known  as  Frederick  It. 

We  learn  with  rejoicing  that  Pope  Coelestine,  feeble 
old  man  as  he  felt  himself,  at  once  excommunicated 
the  Bearsark  Emperor.  He  did  not  seem  to  mind. 
Moving  back  through  Italy,  he  gave  to  one  of  his 
ruffians,  Markwald,  Ancona  and  Romagna  ;  on 
Diephold  he  bestowed  Apulia.  He  dragged  Roger 
the  Norman  through  the  streets  of  Capua  at  a  horse's 


CHARACTER    OF  INNOCENT  287 

tail.  To  his  brother  Philip  he  made  a  present  of 
Tuscany.  He  proposed  to  the  German  Princes  that 
they  should  hold  their  fiefs  by  hereditary  right,  and 
that  the  Imperial  crown  should  be  settled  on  the 
House  of  Hohenstauffen.  It  was  almost  agreed  upon 
when  he  returned  to  Sicily  and  set  up  the  siege  of 
Castro  Giovanni.  There  all  his  plans  came  to  an 
end.  The  Emperor  went  out  hunting,  caught  a  fever 
and  expired  at  Messina  September  28,  1197.  In 
January  Ccelestine  died,  and  Innocent  III,  was  elected 
by  a  unanimous  vote. 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Papacy.  Cardinal 
Lothair,  a  Roman  with  Northern  blood  in  his  veins, 
was  thirty-seven  when  he  assumed  the  tiara.  He  had 
studied  law  in  Bologna,  theology  in  Paris  ;  during 
the  reign  of  Coelestine,  being  put  on  one  side,  he 
had  written  a  book  on  the  Contempt  of  the  World. 
His  morals  were  beyond  suspicion  ;  in  character  he 
displayed  that  strange  mingling  of  severity  and 
sweetness,  of  resolute  determination  and  humble  self- 
abasement,  which  we  have  remarked  in  Gregory  VII. 
His  reign  of  eighteen  years  filled  Europe  with  the 
fame  of  his  deeds,  and  has  been  called  an  autocracy  ; 
it  was  the  rule  of  a  strong  man,  not  without  blemishes 
in  word  and  conduct,  on  which  partisans  or  enemies 
will  pronounce  more  decidedly  than  those  who  look 
from  an  historical  perspective  over  the  time.  When 
we  remember  that  the  thirteenth  century,  at  which 
we  have  now  arrived,  produced  in  one  age  and  in 
the  same  Church  Innocent  III.  and  Frederick  II., 
King  John  of  England  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
Simon    de     Montfort     and     Stephen    Langton,    we 


288  INNOCENT  III.    AND   FREDERICK  II. 

shall  acknowledge  that  a  Pope  whose  duty  it  was 
to  steer  over  these  troubled  waters  might  easily  turn 
the  helm  a  few  points  out  of  the  direct  course. 

Though  sprung  of  a  popular  Roman  house,  the 
Conti,  Innocent  was  unable  to  suppress  the  violence 
or  avert  the  bloodshed  which  furnished  daily  occupa- 
tion to  the  Orsini,  his  enemies  from  of  old,  and  the 
Scotti,  his  mother's  kindred.  He  undertook  the 
reform — always  needed — of  the  spiritual  courts, 
insisting  that  they  should  not  sell  or  barter  justice. 
He  drew  up  the  Canonical  decrees  himself.  But  he 
suffered  the  Romans  to  humble  Viterbo ;  and  after 
demanding  their  allegiance  was  insulted,  of  course  at 
*^)  W  the  altar,  compelled  to  quit  the  Lateran  and  to 
^  ^  spend  a  winter  in  Anagni.  No  wonder  he  fell  into  a 
dangerous  illness.  He  came  back  and  a  democratic 
Senate  was  appointed.  In  Rome  the  Pope  could 
but  look  on  while  the  nobles  built  or  demolished 
the  nine  hundred  towers  from  which  they  made  war 
upon  one  another.  He  had  no  means  of  keeping 
the  peace  except  persuasion,  or  by  playing  off  one 
set  of  miscreants  against  an  equally  infamous  set, 
their  born  adversaries.  On  this  sombre  background 
Innocent's  qualities  as  a  world-ruler  shine  out  with 
redoubled  splendour. 

Some  great  advantages  he  possessed.  Not  even 
Gregory  VII.  could  enjoy  a  clearer  view  of  the 
prerogatives  which,  as  Supreme  Judge,  he  attributed 
to  the  Papacy ;  nor  was  there  any  Barbarossa  to 
question  them.  Constance,  in  her  widow's  weeds, 
had  thrown  herself  and  the  infant  Frederick  under 
his    protection,    declared    Sicily    a    Papal    fief,   and 


GVELF   UPRISING 


289 


accepted  a  Bull  which  asserted  these  claims  with  the 
utmost  energy.  The  Queen  got  back  her  son  and 
had  him  crowned  in  Palermo.  But  this  had  not  been 
accomplished  until  an  uprising,  almost  universal 
throughout  Italy,  had  overthrown  the  German  tyrants 


I'Ol'E    INNOCENT    III.,    A.l>.    II98. 


who  ravaged  land  and  people.  Innocent  demanded 
Romagna  from  Markwald.  The  Guelfs  everywhere 
sided  with  the  Pope  ;  and  now,  at  least,  their  cause, 
observes  a  modern  writer,  was  the  cause  of  freedom 
and  humanity.  The  whole  Exarchate  was  up ; 
Markwald,  after  wasting  it  to  the  gates  of  Ravenna, 

20 

f 


290  INNOCENT  ///.   AND   FREDERICK   II. 

had  to  retreat.  Conrad,  Duke  of  Spoleto,  submitted, 
when  fighting  became  impossible,  and  Innocent  re- 
ceived in  person  the  homage  of  the  Hberated  cities  and 
renewed  the  alHance  with  Lombardy.  The  Tuscan 
domain  he  vindicated  to  the  Holy  See. 

Soon  after  this  happy  moment  in  Italian  history, 
Queen  Constance  died.  Her  little  son  became  the 
Pope's  ward  ;  Innocent  might  almost  be  termed 
Regent  of  the  Peninsula.  But  Markwald,  the  excom- 
municate, raised  his  banner  as  Seneschal  ;  he  was 
defeated  by  Papal  troops  at  Monte  Cassino,  and 
later  on  near  Palermo.  In  1202  he  also  died  ;  but 
his  confederate  Diephold  pursued  the  same  policy,  in 
which  the  Pope  was  forced  to  acquiesce.  Charges 
of  duplicity  were  made  on  all  sides  ;  and  in  such  an 
atmosphere  of  deceit  and  intrigue  was  Frederick  II. 
brought  up. 

His  uncle  Philip  saw  and  seized  the  opportunity. 
Philip  had  retired  across  the  Alps,  followed  by  Italian 
maledictions,  leaving  Tuscany  to  be  recovered  by 
and  by  from  Innocent,  but  himself  bent  on  wearing 
the  Iron  and  Imperial  crown.  He  was  elected  at 
Muhlhausen.  But  could  the  Pope  accept  a  man 
who  was  usurping  his  nephew's  inheritance  ?  Could 
he  look  on  approvingly  while  the  House  of  Suabia 
passed  on  the  Empire  from  kinsman  to  kinsman, 
establishing  a  prescription  which  would  make  it 
independent  of  the  Church  ?  No  question  of  a 
spiritual  nature  was  this  in  the  modern  sense  ;  but 
it  concerned  the  Pope's  immunity  from  political 
thraldom,  and  Innocent  must  have  been  delighted 
when  Adolphus  of  Cologne  raised  a  party,  the  object 


CONTEST  FOR    THE   EMPIRE  29 1 

of  which  was  to  break  the  Hohenstauffen.  This 
Archbishop  and  his  fellows  set  up  Otho,  son  of  Henry 
the  Lion,  Guelf  of  the  Guelfs,  who  came  forward  as  a 
champion  in  Church  defence,  with  English  gold  in  his 
purse,  the  nobles  of  Flanders  at  his  back,  May,  1198. 
Innocent  did  not  immediately  declare  his  mind.  A 
Legate  arrived  from  Rome,  demanding  the  release  of 
Sibylla,  Tancred's  widow,  and  her  daughters,  but 
above  all,  that  of  the  Archbishop  of  Salerno,  im- 
prisoned by  Henry  VI.  The  penalty  threatened  was 
an  Interdict  over  all  Germany.  But,  besides  this, 
Philip,  even  now  excommunicate,  must  surrender  the 
lands  which  belonged  to  the  Holy  See.  Philip  made 
vague  promises,  and  bribed  thu  Legate,  who  gave 
him  absolution.  He  was  at  once  disowned  by  his 
indignant  master.  Nevertheless,  the  absolution  had 
been  pronounced,  and  the  Empire  seemed  to  have 
chosen  Philip. 

Both  candidates  were  crowned — by  no  means  an 
empty  ceremony  in  ages  when  symbols  convey  the 
virtue  they  express — but  Otho  appealed  to  Rome. 
France  and  England  were  taking  opposite  sides.  Still 
the  Pope  kept  silence,  and  war  broke  out.  After  a 
year,  when  Otho  began  to  lose.  Innocent  required  of 
the  Electors  that  they  should  remit  the  cause  to  him- 
self Philip  would  not  formally  appeal  ;  yet  he  sent 
up  a  great  list  of  his  supporters,  including  the  King 
of  France  and  a  host  of  prelates.  The  address  which 
accompanied  this  manifesto  threatened  an  invasion  of 
Rome.  Innocent  replied  with  firmness.  Again  the 
war  broke  out;  horrible  deeds  were  done;  and  in 
1 200   the    famous    "  Deliberation "    was    carried    to 


292  INNOCENT  HI.   AND   FREDERICK  II. 

Germany  by  Pierleon,  Bishop  of  Palestrina,  in  which, 
after  comparing  the  merits  and  claims  of  Frederick, 
PhiHp,  and  Otho,  Innocent  declared  that  the  Apostolic 
See  had  the  right  of  passing  judgment  on  an  election 
to  the  Empire.  He  went  on  to  sa}^  that  the  House 
of  Suabia,  as  far  back  as  Henry  V.,  had  ever  been 
hostile  to  the  Popes,  and  in  Henry  VI.  had  been 
guilty  of  repeated  sacrilege  ;  that  Philip  himself  was  a 
persecutor  ;  and  that  Otho,  chosen  by  a  minority,  was 
yet  a  good  son  of  the  Church,  and  came  of  a  loyal 
Catholic  stock,  wherefore  he,  and  not  Philip,  should 
be  Emperor. 

Otho  came  before  the  Papal  Legates  ;  made  every 
concession  ;  and  was  proclaimed  by  Cardinal  Guido. 
But,  in  the  Diet  of  Bamberg  and  elsewhere,  almost 
all  the  great  prelates  stood  by  Philip  ;  and  ten  years 
of  war  ensued  which  might  be  fittingly  compared  for 
the  murders,  pillagings,  and  havoc  perpetrated  in 
them,  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War  itself.  Whose  was 
the  fault  ?  Many,  then  and  since,  have  laid  it  to  the 
charge  of  Innocent,  careless  what  befel  the  German 
lands  while  no  strong  Emperor  menaced  him  at 
Rome.  Others  will  not  allow  that  Guelfs  and 
Ghibellines  could  be  subdued  into  peace  by  Papal 
Encyclicals  ;  Otho  represented  one  powerful  party, 
Philip  another  ;  they  must  have  fought  their  battle  to 
the  end,  though  Innocent  had  taken  no  side.  How- 
ever, Adolphus  of  Cologne  was  paid  to  desert  Otho, 
whom  he  had  himself  proposed  ;  in  1207  Philip  and 
the  Pope  came  to  terms  ;  and  the  Papal  Legates  kept 
Christmas  Day  at  Metz  with  the  Hohenstaufifen,  now 
absolved  again.     Ere  the  July  of  1208  had  run  out, 


OTHO   IV.    IN   ITALY  293 

Philip,  the  best^f  his  dynast}^  was  stabbed  to  death 
by  another  Otho,  Count  of  Wittelsbach,  and  the  Guelf 
became  Emperor  a  second  time. 

If,  as  the  facts  lead  us  to  conclude,  Innocent  had 
broken  his  pledges  to  Otho  IV.,  he  was  doomed  in  a 
brief  space  to  undergo  the  severest  penance.  They 
met  at  Viterbo  with  rejoicings.  The  Pope  crowned 
his  elect  son  in  St.  Peter's.  And,  as  always,  the  Roman 
crowd  fell  on  a  German  bishop  ;  the  German  soldiers 
fell  on  the  sons  of  Romulus  ;  horses  and'  men  were 
slaughtered  ;  and  Otho  drew  away  from  the  field  of 
blood — but  only  to  resume  the  Tuscan  cities  from 
Florence  to  Pisa.  He  gave  away  Spoleto  ;  he  made 
Diephold  Prince  of  Salerno  ;  he  defied  the  Pope  and 
his  interdict ;  and  then  set  forth  to  subdue  Naples. 
There  remained  no  enemy  behind  him  except  Inno- 
cent, who  uttered  over  the  renegade  his  most  solemn 
censures  on  Maundy  Thursday,  121 1.  But  in  an 
hour  the  tide  of  victory  turned.  Siegfried  of  Mayence 
published  the  excommunication  from  his  cathedral. 
Innocent,  by  force  of  events,  had  become  a  Ghibelline. 
For  if  Otho  should  be  put  down — and  his  avarice, 
insolence,  falsehood,  richly  deserved  it — who  could 
succeed  but  young  Frederick  of  Sicily?  Here  then 
was  to  begin  a  most  romantic  episode  in  the  life  of 
one  whose  adventures,  like  his  genius  and  his 
character,  exhausted  the  capacities  of  good  and  evil. 

The  King  of  Sicily  was  no  more  than  seventeen, 
but  already  married  to  Constance  of  Arragon,  and 
the  father  of  a  son  destined  to  bear  the  name  of 
Henry  VI I.  In  Frederick  himself  all  manner  of 
graces   were  combined   with  an    intellect    which    his 


294  INNOCENT   III.   AND   FREDERICK  II. 

friends  called  philosophic,  a  courage  that  would 
shortly  be  put  to  the  test,  a  vivacity  and  versatility 
which  astonish  us  at  so  great  a  distance  from  his 
time,  and  a  genius  the  true  epithet  for  which  is 
"  modern,"  not  "  medieval."  In  his  exquisite  youth, 
amid  the  golden  groves  and  the  shining  seas  of 
Palermo,  poetry  was  the  language  he  took  pleasure 
in  ;  and  the  quests  of  a  knighthood,  not  crusading  but 
early  Greek  or  contemporary  Provencal,  drew  him  on 
towards  the  unknown.  Anselm  of  Justingen  and 
Henry  of  Niffen  were  now  charged  by  the  Suabians 
to  bring  him  up  from  the  South.  In  Rome  they  had 
an  interview  with  Pope  Innocent ;  he  yielded  to  the 
logic  of  circumstances  ;  and  in  his  Sicilian  garden 
Frederick  was  offered  the  crown  which  Otho  had  not 
yet  surrendered.     He  accepted  it  without  hesitation. 

But  Otho,  in  November,  121 1,  rushed  from  Apulia 
to  Frankfort,  summoned  a  Diet,  began  to  war  upon 
certain  of  the  nobles,  and,  by  way  of  enticing  others, 
married  Beatrice,  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Philip. 
In  four  days  she  was  dead.  Her  cousin  from  Sicily 
had  set  out  in  March,  12 12,  with  only  a  handful  of 
soldiers.  He  made  his  entrance  into  Rome,  received 
the  welcomxe  of  Pope  and  Senate,  was  conveyed  by 
sea  to  Genoa,  and  by  side  marches  came  to  Trent, 
where  a  squadron  of  Guelfs  held  the  pass.  Escaping 
over  mountain  roads  he  arrived  at  Chur,  and  the 
great  monastery  of  St.  Gall.  Otho  was  advancing  to 
Constance  ;  Frederick  with  his  few  knights  and  some 
retainers  of  the  abbey  ran  swiftly  forward,  reached 
Constance  three  hours  before  Otho,  and  persuaded 
the  Bishop  to  shut  his  gates.    The  Empire  was  taken. 


BATTLE    OF  BOU VINES  295 

At  Basle  other  Bishops  and  a  crowd  of  noble  horse- 
men saluted  Frederick.  The  Primate  Siegfried  lent 
him  all  his  strength  ;  at  Frankfort  he  was  named 
Emperor ;  and  Otho  retired  into  Saxony.  There 
was  not  much  fighting.  England  and  Flanders 
leagued  with  the  Guelf  as  in  previous  campaigns  ; 
Philip  Augustus  with  the  Ghibelline.  A  battle  of  no 
heroic  dimensions,  but  which  marked  an  epoch,  the 
battle  of  Bouvines,  decided  that  France  should  exist 
henceforth  as  a  great  European  Power  ;  and  that 
Frederick  should  win  his  wild  enterprise  (May  27, 
1 2 14).  Otho  went  back  to  his  own  land  ;  built 
monasteries  ;  lived  three  years  in  retreat  and  repen- 
tance;  and  died  in  1217  forgotten.  -Frederick  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle  put  on  the  crown  of  Charlemagne.  One 
Pope  had  made  him  Emperor  ;  that  Pope's  successors 
were  to  spend  their  lives,  treasures,  and  reputation,  in 
unmaking  him. 


XIX 


CRUSADES   AGAINST   GREEKS   AND   ALBIGENSES 


(12OI-I233) 


By  a  singular  good  or  evil  fortune,  Innocent  III., 
who  was  to  subdue  the  Western  Empire,  began  his 
reign  by  conquering  the  Eastern  in  his  own  despite. 
Henry  VI.  may  have  dreamt  of  stretching  his  iron 
sceptre  over  Constantinople  ;  but  the  honour  and 
shame  which  this  new  voyage  of  the  Argonauts 
brought  with  it  were  reserved  for  Venice  and  the 
pirates  of  the  Fourth  Crusade.  Saladin  was  no  more. 
Fulk  of  Neuilly  preached  the  Cross  from  Brittany  to 
Flanders,  a  penitent,  saint,  and  humourist,  whom 
crowds  followed  and  princes  obeyed.  Immense 
offerings  flowed  in,  not  always  expended  on  the 
Holy  War,  though  Fulk  appears  to  have  dealt 
honestly  with  them.  Baldwin  of  Flanders  took  the 
Cross ;  so  did  a  host  of  nobles,  including  Simon  de 
Montfort,  who  had  lately  made  truce  with  the 
Saracens  in  Palestine  on  behalf  of  his  fellow- 
Christians.     And    this    was    to    be   a    great    French 

expedition,    of     which    Villehardouin,    Marshal     of 

296 


ZARA    TAKEN  29/ 

Champagne,  would  write  the  story  in  his  picturesque 
and  soldierly  prose. 

But  the  divisions  could  not  march  across  an  Empire 
"y^  'W^  one  huge  battlefield,  nor  attempt  the  land 
journey  to  Byzantium.  It  was  resolved  to  convey 
them  by  sea.  And  the  carrying  trade  of  Europe  had 
long  been  in  the  hands  of  Genoa,  Pisa,  Venice.  To 
Venice  on  this  errand  came  Villehardouin.  Terms 
were  arranged  ;  the  old  half-blind  Duke  Dandolo 
required  eighty-five  thousand  silver  marks  as  the 
price  of  transport ;  the  Republic  would  furnish  fifty 
galleys  in  addition,  commanded  by  the  Doge,  and 
would  be  entitled  to  half  the  conquests  made  by  its 
more  enthusiastic  allies.  Boniface  of  Montferrat,  a 
pious  c^dottiere^was  captain-in-chief.  The  crusaders 
swarmed  to  Venice  in  1201,  but  on  the  eve  of  depar- 
ture they  could  not  raise  the  pile  of  silver  marks  to 
the  height  stipulated.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
Dandolo  suggested  an  equivalent  for  the  thirty 
thousand  marks  wanting.  Zara,  on  the  Dalmatian 
coast,  had  fallen  off  from  Venice  and  sworn  allegiance 
to  Hungary.  Let  the  crusaders  take  Zara.  True, 
the  Hungarian  King  had  himself  assumed  the  sacred 
emblem,  and  to  make  war  on  him  meant  excom- 
munication. True,  also,  that  Cardinal  Beter  forbade 
the  plundering  of  a  Christian  city  in  the  Pope's  name. 
Nevertheless,  Dandolo  led  the  fleet,  a  glittering  show, 
across  the  Adriatic.  Zara  was  taken  and  spoilt,  its 
wealth  divided  (November,  1202).  Istria  yielded  to 
Venice.  And  now,  says  Villehardouin,  there  came  \6\ 
pass  a  great  wonder,  the  strangest  and  most  unlooked- 
for  adventure  in  the  world. 


298       CRUSADES   AGAINST   GREEKS   AND   ALBIGENSES 

Alexius  Comnenus  had  dethroned  and  blinded  his 
brother,  Isaac  Angelus,  and  this  man's  son,  Alexius 
the  Younger,  had  in  vain  traversed  Italy,  beseeching 
now  the  Pope  and  now  his  own  brother-in-law,  the 
Emperor  Philip,  for  assistance  to  overturn  the 
usurper.  His  messengers  had  already  appeared  in 
Venice,  not  without  hope  ;  for  between  the  Republic 
and  Byzantium  a  long-standing  quarrel  existed  on  the 
subject  of  commerce  injured  by  the  Greeks,  and 
moneys  due  from  them.  Dandolo  had  his  private 
grievance ;  it  was  in  handling  these  Easterns  that  his 
sight  had  been  nearly  destroyed.  Now  in  the  camp 
at  Zara,  fresh  proposals  were  made.  The  Pope  would 
not  hear  of  such  a  thing.  He  interdicted  the  Crusaders, 
excommunicated  the  Venetians  ;  Simon  de  Montfort 
went  over  with  his  followers  to  the  King  of  Hungary. 
All  to  no  purpose.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that 
Dandolo  from  the  first  intended  to  revenge  himself 
and  the  Republic  on  a  State  which  supported  Genoa, 
while  harassing  the  Venetian  Colony  at  the  Golden 
Horn.  And  so,  while  Rome  put  forth  one  protest  after 
another,  the  galleys  sailed  down  to  Corfu  ;  they  went 
on  to  Constantinople.  When  the  towers,  walls,  and 
domes  of  that  incomparable  city  broke  on  their  view, 
the  Crusaders,  astonished,  felt  like  men  in  a  dream. 
On  the  shores  appeared  sixty  thousand  Greeks  in 
arms.  But  before  the  charge  they  vanished.  Dandolo, 
whose  friends  had  concerted  with  him  already,  seized 
twenty-five  towers  ;  the  banner  of  St.  Mark  waved 
over  the  city  of  Constantine.  During  hundreds  of 
years  Venice  was  to  hold  the  gorgeous  East  in  fee 
and    to   share  with   the    Franks    in    Morea  and    the 


FRENCH   PRINCES   IN    GREECE  299 

Greek    Archipelago    such    dominion   as   their  united 
arms  and  wealth  could  secure. 

But  the  self-styled  army  of  the  Lord  pillaged, 
murdered,  desecrated,  broke  the  monuments,  plucked 
up  the  bones  of  dead  Emperors,  set  Isaac  and  Alexius 
on  the  throne,  hurled  them  down  again,  offered  the 
crown  to  Dandolo,  carved  the  city  and  the  Empire 
into  slices,  and  gave  what  was  left  to  Baldwin  of 
Flanders.  There  was  a  King  of  Macedonia,  the 
Marquis  of  Montferrat ;  a  Duke  of  Niccxa,  the  Coun 
of  Blois.  Shakespeare^Dukej>f _A  thf^-r>,s_r)^tp'='  fro 
this  period.  Villehardouin  was  Marshal  of  Roumania ; 
Guillaume  de  Champlitte  was  Prince  of  Morea,  and 
built  his  castle,  as  did  Templars  and  Teutonic  Knights 
their  churches,  at  Andravida  in  Elis,  by  which  the 
tourist  passes  now  on  his  railway  journey  to  Olympia. 
As  late  as  1 300  FVench  was  spoken  at  Athens,  where 
Otho  de  la  Roche  had  founded  a  dynasty,  which 
Walter  de  Brienne,  with  the  help  of  Catalonian 
mercenaries,  overthrew. 

Innocent,  who  had  done  his  utmost  to  prevent  a 
catastrophe  which  he  felt  could  never  bring  about  the 
union  of  the  Churches,  took  some  dubious  pride  in 
having  let  down  the  net.  But  his  indignant  language 
holds  up  the  Crusaders  to  reprobation  as  "  worse  than 
dogs,"  stained  with  lust,  avarice,  cruelty,  steeped  in 
Christian  blood.  The  Venetians  appointed  their  own 
Patriarch ;  Innocent  unwillingly  approved  of  him. 
He  took  the  Latin  Empire  under  his  especial  pro- 
tection. Yet  feuds  of  the  Western  type  between 
clergy  and  nobles.  Pope  and  Patriarch,  could  not  be 
kept  down.      The    Latin   Church  at  Constantinople 


300      CRUSADES   AGAINST  GREEKS   AND  ALBIGENSES 

added,  if  addition  were  possible,  to  the  deadly  hatred 
of  the  Greeks  whose  Emperor,  Lascaris,  had  with- 
drawn into  Asia,  while  their  Archbishop,  Camaterus, 
set  up  his  throne  at  Nicjt'a.  Ancient  history  repeated 
itself;  the  King  of  Bulgaria  took  Baldwin  captive  at 
Adrianople,  though  Bulgaria  had  submitted,  both 
kingdom  and  Church,  to  Rome.  Yet  Baldwin  died 
in  the  grasp  of  Johannes,  whose  submission  was  little 
more  than  a  pretence.  From  1204  to  1 261,  the  Latin 
Empire  lingered  out  its  agony.  Between  East  and 
West  the  greatest  and  most  calamitous  of  schisms 
had  become  irremediable.  In  taking  Constantinople, 
the  Crusaders  prepared  the  way  for  Mohammed  II. 
and  his  Turkish  hordes  ;  they  gave  an  example  which 
was  immediately  followed,  of  beating  the  Cross  into  a 
sword  against  Christian  countries  and  peoples  ;  they 
may  even  be  said  to  have  created  some  of  the  circum- 
stances which  made  the  Reformation  plausible  and 
popular.  Such  were  the  results  of  that  marvellous 
undertaking  so  vividly  described  by  Villehardouin, 
alternately  cursed  and  blessed  by   Innocent  III. 

After  this  we  hear  no  more  of  a  universal  Crusade. 
Venice,  the  gate  of  the  East,  poured  into  Italy 
treasures  of  art  and  learning  ;  decorated  St.  Mark's 
with  brilliant  mosaics  in  which  the  whole  Bible  seems 
to  glow  upon  its  walls  and  cupolas ;  and  held  the 
^golden  chain  that  binds  the  Renaissance  of  the 
thirteenth  century  to  that  of  the  fifteenth.  We  have 
left  the  Dark  Ages  behind.  A  revolution  was  ap- 
proaching in  the  West.  England,  thanks  to  King 
John,  had  lost  Normandy.  France,  under  its  able, 
mean,  unscrupulous  Philip  Augustus,  had  united   to 


SAN    MARCO,    VENICE. 


302      CRUSADES   AGAINST  GREEKS   AND  ALBIGENSES 

the  crown  those  Northern  dukedoms,  and  would,  by 
and  by,  annex  the  Southern,  wrenched  from  the 
trembHng  hands  of  Raymund  of  Provence.  In  121 2, 
an  innumerable  Moorish  host  was  to  be  cut  in  pieces 
at  Navas  de  Tolosa,  and  Spain  would  become  once 
for  all  the  Catholic  land  we  know.  But  in  Europe  at 
large  a  revolt,  due  to  many  causes,  mingled  of  most 
confused  ingredients,  mystic,  dogmatic,  economic,  had 
long  been  preparing.  It  burst  forth  while  Innocent 
was  receiving  ambassadors  from  Armenia,  Bohemia, 
Iceland,  from  both  Empires,  and  from  all  the  Kings 
of  the  West. 

^This  widespread  insurrection  has  been  celebrated 
in  undying  literature.  It  is  regarded  with  sympathy 
by  all  such  as  consider  it  the  first  though  un- 
successful effort  towards  a  true  Reformation.  Catholic 
historians,  on  the  other  side,  paint  it  in  the  darkest 
colours  and  hold  that  it  would  have  brought  down  in 
a  common  ruin  Church  and  State.  In  the  mysterious 
anarchy  which  was  ever  shaking  the  pillars  of  the 
world  as  with  subterranean  earthquake,  Michelet 
perceives  an  influence.  Oriental,  Jewish,  and  Arabian, 
but  above  all,  Manicha^an,  propagated  Westwards 
from  the  Crusades  themselves.  We  can  follow  the 
movement  across  Northern  Italy  and  upwards  from 
Southern  Spain,  until  its  streams  meet  in  Languedoc, 
a  country  which  resembled  Judea  in  physical  features 
and  of  which  Toulouse  was  to  be  the  Mount  Zion. 
Hebrew  scholars  taught  at  Narbonne  and  Mont- 
pellier,_ -^  Moorish  science,  philosophy,  and  even 
^^w^^^EHeology,  penetrated  into  the  Universities  of  Christen- 
loya  by  way  of  the  Pyrenees.     The  exaltation  of  love 


RELIGIOUS   ANARCHY  303 

and  chivalry  was  a  chord  never  silent  in  Provencal 
verse.  And  a  tremendous  word  had  been  uttered  in 
secret,  yet  was  repeated  by  many,  "  Nothing  is  true, 
everything  is  lawful."  Did  multitudes  believe  in  the  ^ 
two  principles,  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman  ?  How,  then,  "^^^ 
could  the  standard  of  morals  be  saved  ?  Was  there  IZJJ 
a  design  to  level  the  Hierarchy?  But  in  a  crowd  of 
wrangling  sectaries  what  would  be  the  fortune  of  truth? 
Toleration  as  a  general  axiom  would  have  been 
scouted  and  called  blasphemy  by  all  the  parties  con- 
cerned in  this  frightful  crisis.  Jews,  indeed,  might  be 
tolerated  ;  but  they  were  aliens,  soon  to  wear  the 
badge  of  the  yellow  quoit.  Heretics,  who  wore  no 
badge,  who  lived  everywhere,  and  might  be  found  in 
all  stations,  how  were  they  to  be  dealt  with  ?  These 
immoral  mystics,  it  was  said,  deserved  to  fare  worse 
than  Saracens  ;  they  must  be  run  upon  like  mad 
dogs.  If  a  Crusade  were  holy  which  aimed  at 
delivering  the  Lord's  Sepulchre  from  infidels,  was  it 
not  as  holy  when  it  took  up  arms  in  defence  of 
priesthood,  Sacraments,  the  Commandments  them- 
selves, and  the  social  order?  But  in  truth  no  one 
questioned  its  lawfulness.  To  the  powers  that  werfe 
in  the  year  1208  heretics  appeared  precisely  such  as 
anarchists  appear  to  us  now — insane  revolutionaries 
that  cannot  be  reasoned  with,  but  must  be  cut  off  by 
the  strong  arm  of  the  law. 

So  thought  Innocent  HI.,  and  on  this  principle 
he  acted.  As  Captain-General  of  Christendom,  he 
received  from  every  quarter  bulletins  which  an- 
nounced that  the  enemy  was  growing  in  force 
through  all  the  towns   of  Italy,  and  even   in   Rome. 


304      CRUSADES   AGAINST  GREEKS   AND  ALBIGENSES 

A  I     But  the  centre  of  the  storm  was  Languedoc,  with  its 

S  ]  Moorish  culture  and  its  Asiatic  creed. 
^-<"  Toulouse  was  a  republic  under  Raymund  VI.,  the 
richest  prince  in  Europe,  dissolute  but  accomplished, 
the  friend  of  Saracens  and  patron  of  heretics,  lord  of 
seven  wealthy  provinces,  seemingly  a  match  for  the 
unarmed  Pope,  who  could  not  reckon  on  a  street  in 
Rome  as  loyal.  But  the  Pope  could  summon  a 
Crusade.  Not  against  Raymund,  whose  orthodoxy, 
if  suspected,  had  not  been  disproved  ;  yet  against  his 
subjects,  should  he  persist  in  declining  to  coerce  them. 
For  his  indulgence  was  more  perilous  than  open  heresy. 
If  Macaulay  is  justified — and  our  documents  bear  him 
out  — "  the  Papacy  had  lost,"  in  Provence  and 
Languedoc,  "  all  authority  with  all  classes,  from  the 
great  feudal  princes  down  to  the  cultivators  of  the 
soil."  Let  this  plague  spread,  as  it  threatened,  from 
the  Rhone  to  the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine,  there  would 
come  an  end  of  the  Catholic  Hierarchy,  which  in  those 
lands  governed  not  only  in  the  holy  place,  but  in  the 
university,  the  army,  the  market,  and  the  State  at 
large. 

\  \  Innocent  was  not  the  founder  of^the  Inqmsjiicm^ 
,y.j-  ,K  any  more  than  St.  Dominic,  whose  name  has  been 
associated  with  a  tribunal  which  did  not  exist  till 
after  his  death.  But  the  Bishops'  Courts  had  taken 
cognisance  of  heretical  pravity  from  of  old — and  their 
jurisdiction  received  fresh  strength  under  Lucius  IIL, 
in  1 1 84,  when  the  Paterines  were  active  in  demanding 
a  reform  of  the  Church.  No  sooner  had  Innocent 
been  elected  than  he  gave  most  extensive  powers  to 
the  Cistercian    Order,   naming  as  his  legates  in  the 


CISTERCIANS    PREACH  IN    VAIN  305 

South  of  France  Arnold  d'Amouri,  the  Abbot  of 
Abbots,  Raoul,  and  Pierre  de  Castehiau.  They  were 
to  preach  repentance,  but  also  to  insist  on  the  local 
authorities  putting  in  force  the  ban,  or  outlawry, 
equivalent  to  civil  death,  which  Innocent  judged  to 
be  the  portion  of  apostates. 

Citeaux,  indeed,  was  rich,  corrupt,  fallen  from 
its  first  fervour.  The  Abbot  displayed  a  magni- 
ficence unbecoming  his  vows,  a  hardness  of  heart 
which  he  mistook  for  Gospel  charity.  On  his 
travels  he  fell  in  with  the  Spanish  Bishop  of  Osma 
and  St.  Dominic,  returning  from  Rome.  He  com- 
plained that  his  preaching  bore  no  fruit.  Dominic 
reminded  him  that  the  Lord's  disciples  were  sent  to 
preach  barefoot,  without  scrip,  without  staff,  and  set 
him  an  example  which  he  unwillingly  followed.  But 
still  the  conferences  proved  barren,  or  showed  that 
the  Paulician  dogmas  had  admirers,  if  not  adherents, 
in  every  town  where  a  public  discussion  took  place. 
The  only  means  likely  to  avail  with  these  stiff-necked 
dissenters  were  such  as  Raymund  would  not  employ. 
After  eight  }ears  of  preaching,  Pierre  de  Castelnau 
declared  a  general  peace  among  the  feudal  chieftains 
and  a  campaign  against  the  heretics,  under  threat  of 
interdict.  His  strong  measures  were  enforced  by  the 
Pope  in  a  vehement  letter  to  the  unfortunate  or  guilty 
Raymund,  charging  him  with  heinous  crimes,  and 
concluding  with  a  menace  to  deprive  hirrt  of  his 
territory.  This  was  follou^^d  up  by  the_nrpclama,tion 
of  a  Crusade  in  November,  1207,  to  be  undertaken  by 
the  King  of  F'rance  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
Two   months   afterwards,    Pierre   de   Castelnau    was 

21 


306       CRUSADES   AGAINST   GREEKS   AND   ALBIGENSES 

murdered  by  one  of  Raymund's  esquires  on  the  banks 
of  the  Rhone. 

That  any  prince  not  out  of  his  mind  should  have 
instigated  this  crime  is  highly  improbable.  No  fair 
judge  will  lay  it  at  Raymund's  door.  It  was,  indeed, 
the  prelude  to  calamities  which  did  not  finish  with 
his  life,  and  which  proved  the  ruin  of  his  dynasty. 
But  the  Pope  assumed,  and  rumour  asserted,  his  share 
in  the  murder.  Cowed,  as  Henry  II.  had  been  on  the 
death  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  like  Henry  the  Count 
submitted  to  a  public  scourging  at  the  martyr's  tomb. 
But  his  presence,  his  protestation,  was  of  no  avail. 
The  eagles  were  gathering  to  their  prey.  Innocent 
called  on  Philip  Augustus  to  be  up  and  doing  as  a 
Christian  soldier ;  the  two  swords  were  to  smite 
Languedoc  ;  and  though  Philip  would  not  move, 
being  apprehensive  of  King  John,  now  allied  with 
the  Emperor  Otho,  thousands  were  ready  and  willing 
to  enter  on  the  Promised  Land.  Citeaux,  proud  of 
its  wa'rlike  Abbot,  was  the  mother-house  of  the 
Templars,  the  Teutonic  Knights,  the  Orders  of 
Calatrava  and  Avila.  With  its  royal  Duke  and  its 
white  Cistercians  all  Burgundy  seemed  on  the  march  ; 
behind  came  Germans,  Lorrainers,  the  ciievaliers  of 
the  Rhine.  But  the  most  famous  leader  was 
Simon  de  Montfort,  in-  whose  story  the  tragic  Muse 
finds  volumes  —  Montfort,  a  saint,  a  hero,  fierce, 
gentle,  fascinating  to  his  enemies,  but  one  whose 
sword  never  turned  back  from  blood.  Twenty 
thousand  knights,  two  hundred  thousand  of  the 
commoner  sort,  sings  the  Epic  historian,  flung  them- 
selves on  the  land  of  olives,  roses,  serenades,  and  love 


RAYMUND   LOSES   PROVENCE  3O7 

songs.  Innocent  had  precipitated  the  North  on  the 
South.  Raymund  knew  that  there  was  no  turning 
these  battaHons  home  without  conquest  and  booty. 
Captive  in  their  hands  he  was  dragged  along  to  the 
destruction  of  his  people.  The  judicial  process 
became  a  war,  at  the  remembrance  of  which  man- 
kind has  shuddered  ever  since,  and  apologists  them- 
selves have  fallen  silent. 

Led  on  by  their  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  the  Crusaders 
besieged,  massacred,  and  burnt  all  before  them.  The 
sack  of  Beziers  is  the  St.  Bartholomew  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  Not  a  living  soul  was  left  in  its  ruins. 
Carcassonne  was  taken  and  ravaged.  Five  hundred 
castles  or  towns  opened  their  gates  at  the  tremendous 
summons  of  warriors  who  burnt  women  and  children 
"  with  an  extreme  joy,"  and  whose  delight  it  was  to 
treat  these  doubtful  Christians  more  vilely  than  if  they 
had  been  Turks  or  Saracens.  Raymund,  excom- 
municated— was  it  a  third  or  a  fifth  time  ?— fled  after 
Carcassonne  to  Rome.  He  met  with  Italian  courtesy 
from  the  Pope  and  his  great  prelates  ;  but  could  not 
hinder  the  burning  of  Minerva  and  Termes  with  their 
garrisons.  In  the  Council  of  Aries  (February,  121 2) 
fourteen  stipulations  were  submitted  to  him  by  the 
Legates  which  amounted  to  his  virtual  abdication.  He 
refused  and  fell  back  on  Toulouse,  which  became  im- 
mediately the  scene  of  havoc  between  himself  and  its 
Bishop.  Ferocity  was  not  confined  to  the  orthodox ;  but 
they  gained  on  him  continually  ;  before  the  year  was 
out  he  had  lost  every  inch  of  land  except  Toulouse  and 
Montauban.  The  miserable  Count  now  took  refuge 
with  his  brother-in-law,  Pedro  of  Arragon,  who  had 


k 


308      CRUSADES   AGAINST  GREEKS   AND   ALBIGENSES 

just  won  a  battle  of  giants  at  Navas  de  Tolosa. 
Montfort  had  secured  the  attainted  estates  of  Beziers  ; 
he  was  becoming  lord  of  Languedoc.  Pedro  argued 
that  this  could  no  longer  be  deemed  a  Crusade  but  a 
mere  campaign  of  robbery  ;  yet,  though  he  startled, 
he  could  not  convince  the  Pope,  who  may  have  felt 
some  remorse,  but  dared  not  intervene.  The  King  of 
Arragon  moved  forward  with  a  large  army.  Mont- 
fort, with  less  than  fifteen  hundred  men,  encountered 
him  at  Muret  (September  13,  12 13).  Pedro  was 
defeated  and  slain.  Raymund,  with  his  son,  took  to 
flight.     It  seemed  that  all  was  over. 

But  the  end  was  not  yet.  At  Montpellier  in  12 15, 
the  Legate,  by  advice  and  consent  of  a  great  meeting, 
bestowed  on  Montfort  the  whole  dominions  which  these 
two  Counts  had  forfeited.  The  same  year.  Innocent  in 
the  Lateran  Council  declared  Raymund  VI.  fallen  from 
every  tittle  of  sovereignty :  condemned  him  to  exile, 
but  was  willing  to  leave  Provence  to  his  son  under 
conditions.  War  was  resumed.  In  12 16  Toulouse 
underwent  a  siege  that  lasted  nine  months  ;  Simon 
de  Montfort  was  killed  ;  his  son  Amaury  made  over 
no  less  than  four  hundred  and  thirty  fiefs  to  the 
Crown  of  France.  Young  Raymund,  as  we  might 
expect,  fell  under  the  same  suspicions  which  had 
ruined  his  father.  Louis  VIII.  overflowed  the  land 
with  an  army  ;  threw  down  the  walls  of  Toulouse  and 
Narbonne  ;  but  died  in  Auvergne  on  his  way  home  to 
Paris.  Three  years  later,  when  the  infant  St.  Louis 
was  on  the  throne,  Blanche  of  Castile  gathered  in 
this  magnificent  spoil,  which  made  the  French 
Monarchy  stronger  than  it  had  been  since  Charle- 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  3O9 

magne.  Raymund  VII.,  in  1229,  became  a  vassal 
instead  of  a  sovereign  prince.  The  sternest  In- 
quisition was  established  by  a  Council  at  Toulouse. 
If  any  Manichaeans  survived,  they  could  be  handled 
without  a  Crusade.  Between  the  years  1230  and 
1233  the  Dominican  friars  superseded  the  Bishops' 
tribunals,  and  for  a  while  the  Albigenses  gave  no 
further  sign  of  life. 

I  happen  to  be  writing  this  page  of  history  in  the 
fTTwdep  af  T^ausanne  where  Gibbon  added  the  last 
stroke  to  his  immense  and  as  yet  unrivalled  panorama" 
of  the  Roman  Empire  in  decline.  Out  of  those  ruins 
a  second  Empire  had  grown  ;  and  Innocent  III.,  the 
Catholic  Augustus,  wielding  both  swords,  temporal 
no  less  than  spiritual,  reigned  when  the  New  Rome 
stood  at  its  highest  point  above  Kings  and  peoples. 
Yet  as  we  survey  the  prospect  on  which  Gibbon's 
eyes  so  often  rested,  other  names  rise  into  the 
memory,  as  well  known  and  as  enduring  as  the 
mountain  peaks  which  are  reflected  in  Leman's  blue 
waters, — names  of  men  whose  heralds  or  forerunners 
Innocent  opposed  even  to  the  death.  This  quiet 
garden  calls  to  them,  as  if  in  all  one  spirit  lived  and 
wrought.  There  is  Calvin  at  Geneva ;  but  over  against 
him  there  stands  Voltaire.  From  the  Bohemian  Huss, 
committed  to  the  flames  at  Constance,  Farel  and 
Beza  seem  to  point  on  to  Zwingli  perishing  in  battle 
with  the  Forest  Cantons  ;  while  they  and  their  dis- 
ciples forebode  the  crimson-dyed  preacher  of  Social 
Democracy,  lean  Jacques,  out  of  whose  volcanic 
heart  and  moonstruck  brain  the   French  Revolution 


burst.     Gibbon  himself,  the  mocking    not    unkindly 


310      CRUSADES   AGAINST  GREEKS  AND  ALBIGENSES 

sceptic,  from  this  little    Paradise  saw  his  own  world 

shattered    by   the    Rights    of    Man,    guillotined    by 

i        Robespierre,  blown  to  atoms  by  Dumourie^  artillery. 

To  hinder  consummations  such  as  these  (it  was  that 

f    Innocent   smote    Kingdoms    with    interdict,    hewed 

/  ^      down     the     Albigenses,    sent    forth     Dominic    and 

^  Francis    to   announce    a    Gospel  rich   in    mercy  yet 

f'  J       .  terrible  in  vengeance.     He  would  hear  of  no  liberty, 

\  ^    no  learning,  no  sanctity  of  life  or  beauty  of  holiness, 

.  jA         which  had  not  been  consecrated  by  his  Papal  hands. 

Unconsciously,  yet  with   all  his  might,  he  aimed  at 

making  the  Calvins,   Voltaires,  Gibbons,  and   Rous- 

seaus    impossible.     But    they    arrived   in  their  hour, 

y        and  the  light  of  Innocent  III   was  darkened  at  their 

^r  ^'     coming.      Yet,    as    sitting  here  we    muse    upon    the 

£[/^\yhole  story,  it  may  occur  to  us  that  not  Dante  alone, 

3  the    medieval   seer,  but    Shakespeare   too,  sovereign 

C\^'      among  mortal  minds,  and  Goethe,  one  of  the  wisest, 

r*  |vf     would  have  preferred   Innocent  himself  to  Calvin,  St. 

^  M    S  Bernard    of  Clairvaux    to    Jean    Jacques,    and    St. 

Francis  of  Assisi  to  Voltaire. 


XX 


ST.    FRANCIS- 


-THE    FRIARS- 
COUNCIL 


-THE    LATER  AN 


(1182-1215-1226) 


Prqvence  had  been  tamed  in  the  fire.  But  Italy 
was  overrun  with  Waldensian  reformers  ;  the  Ca- 
thari  abounded  in  its  cities ;  and  a  succession  of  bloody 
crusades  might  have  ended  in  revolt  every  where,  when 
the  most  wonderful  scene  of  a  time  rich  in  contrasts 
was  enacted  in  Central  Italy.  There  is  a  white  stone 
village,  perched  midway  on  Monte  Subasio,  called 
Assisi,  which  looks  towards  Spoleto  and  Perugia  over 
a  land  of  vines  and  olives.  In  1 198  Conrad  of  Suabia 
held  the  castle  ;  down  below,  nobles  quarrelled  with 
villeins,  as  in  every  medieval  township  ;  luxury  and 
leprosy  flourished  side  by  side  ;  our  vilest  modern 
alleys  show  nothing  equal  to  the  disease,  filth,  and 
beggary,  which  were  at  home  in  these  fever-dens. 
The  people  could  not  read  ;  seldom  heard  a  preacher  ; 
died  young.  Feudalism  plundered  them  ;  prelates 
neglected    them ;  the    religious   orders    behind    their 

311 


312 


ST.   FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 


high  walls  no  longer,  on  the  whole,  fulfilled  a  civilis- 
ing mission.  Prophets,  like  Joachim  the  Cistercian 
Abbot  of  Flora  (i  132-1202),  announced  revolutions 
which  would  end  the  reign  of  Bishops,  and  bring  in 
the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Others,  such  as 
the  Humiliati,  the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  and  their 
nameless   followers,    sighed    after    Gospel  simplicity. 


ASSISI. 


but  were  by  design  or  prejudice  confounded  with 
Manichaeans  and  liable  to  cord  and  stake.  Innocent 
III.  might  subdue  the  Ghibelline  chiefs,  and  among 
them  Conrad  of  Suabia  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  meditated  an  evangelical  crusade  among  the 
people.  Never  had  the  Church  seemed  so  near 
destruction  as  at  the  moment  when  Francis,  the 
Poverello  of   Assisi,  came  to  her  succour.     It   has 


314  ST".   FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 

been  said  of  him,  with  pardonable  warmth,  that  he 
added  a  page  to  the  New  Testament  and  put  off  the 
Reformation  for  three  centuries.  He  is  the  one  Saint 
whom  all  succeeding  generations  have  canonised. 

Francis,  at  first  called  John,  was  born  in  11 82,  son 
of  Bernardone  the  merchant,  who  changed  his  name 
and  taught  him  to  speak  the  charming  French 
language.  Slightly  educated,  gay  and  impetuous, 
he  was  fired  with  enthusiasm  by  the  wandering 
minstrels  who  sang  of  Charlemagne  and  the  Table 
Round  in  their  lofty  lays.  At  sixteen  he  took  a  lad's 
part  in  the  uprising  against  Conrad.  He  scorned  the 
merchant's  trade,  fell  into  dissipation,  went  out  with 
his  townsmen  to  fight  the  Perugians,  was  wounded 
and  taken  prisoner ;  but  he  fed  on  his  visions  of 
chivalry,  and  at  two  and  twenty  he  underwent  the 
great  spiritual  crisis  that  we  call  conversion.  Dis- 
owned by  his  father,  the  young  man  stripped  himself 
bare  in  the  presence  of  the  Bishop  of  Assisi,  and 
was  wedded  to  his  bride  Poverty,  in  which  name 
he  comprehended  the  utter  renunciation  of  goods, 
honours,  and  privileges.  It  was  an  inspiring  word. 
He  had  learned  it  from  the  Gospel,  and  put  it  to  the 
touch  in  attending  on  the  lepers  out  of  whose  loathly 
dish  he  brought  himself  to  eat.  Then  he  went  forth 
preaching  peace,  the  herald  of  the  Great  King  ;  and 
Assisi,  Umbria,  Italy,  were  stirred  as  though  never 
before  had  Christ  been  announced  to  them.  Umbria 
became  the  Italian  Galilee  ;  Francis  the  beneficent 
shadow  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

His  detachment  from  the  secular  greatness  of  noble 
and  bishop  was  perfect.     But  he  built  no  cloister  and 


EVANGEL   OF  POVERTY  315 

went  straight  to  the  people.  His  rule,  he  said,  was 
the  life  of  Christ.  Men  and  women  came  about  him 
asking  for  guidance,  and  this  was  his  one  reply. 
Ordained  deacon,  he  never  would  become  a  priest ; 
he  remained  entirely  a  stranger  to  the  learning, 
classic  or  theological,  of  his  time  ;  with  Canon  Law 
he  was  unacquainted  ;  but  his  reverence  for  the 
clergy,  his  devotion  to  the  Eucharist,  saved  him  from 
the  perilous  conflicts  in  which  Waldo  and  the  Pate- 
rines  had  gone  down.  With  a  few  companions  he 
drew  near  Innocent  at  the  Lateran  only  to  be 
repulsed.  His  aims  were  judged  by  those  high  rulers 
of  the  Church  impossible  ;  but  to  resist  the  sweet- 
ness and  joy  of  which  he  held  the  secret  was  not 
in  men  still  enthusiastic,  violent,  and  youthful.  The 
new  Order,  tolerated  or  approved,  made  converts, 
especially  among  the  middle  class,  or  the  "  Minores," 
after  whose  name  it  was  called.  It  drew  to  itself 
votaries  whom  an  austere  heretical  movement  would 
else  have  swept  away  beyond  the  Catholic  pale. 
Among  his  friends  was  the  brilliant,  passionate, 
severe  Cardinal  Ugolino,  afterwards  Gregory  IX.,  a 
kinsman  of  the  reigning  Pope,  attached  undoubtedly 
to  Francis,  whom  he  venerated  as  a  Saint  but 
managed  as  an  enthusiast.  To  bring  these  lofty 
ideals  within  rule  and  compass  Ugolino  did  not  shrink 
from  a  policy  in  which  Francis  himself  had  little 
share,  nor  could  witness  its  execution  without  suffer- 
ing. 

This  figure  that  took  all  hearts  was  not  moulded 
on  lawyers'  traditions  ;  we  must  seek  him  in  the 
idyls  of  the   Fioretti ;  in   the    legends  of  his  tender 


3l6  ST.   FI?ANC/S   AND    THE   FRIARS 

dealing  with  bird  and  beast ;  in  his  Canticle  of  the 
Sun;  in  his  journeyings  to  convert  the  Soldan  of 
Cairo  ;  in  his  fraternity  with  the  poor  ;  and  at  last  in 
his  ecstatic  visions  on  Monte  Alvernia  which  stamped 
him  with  the  living  sign  of  Christ.  He  died  at  forty- 
four,  amid  scenes  of  touching  simplicity  ;  worshipped 
as  already  a  Saint  ;  but  leaving  to  his  disciples  the 
task  of  reconciling  inspirations  so  unstudied  and  free 
with  an  order  of  things  which  they  had  outgrown. 
That  was  the  long  tragedy  of  the  Franciscan  brother- 
hood. Medieval  in  its  colouring,  yet  a  fresh  type  of 
religious  development,  orthodox  and  progressive,  it 
accepted  from  Gregory  IX.  an  interpretation  of  its 
idea  that  to  the  Fraticelli,  or  the  Spirituals,  seemed 
a  betrayal.  These  mystic  disputes,  lasting  over  a 
hundred  years,  were  marked  by  revolt  on  the  one 
hand,  by  repression  on  the  other, — both  accompanied 
with  harshness  and  even  cruelty.  We  shall  hear  of 
them  again.  But  when  Brother  Elias  built  the 
splendid  Basilica  of  Assisi  and  Gregory  IX.  canon- 
ised Francis,  in  1228,  the  Moderates  had  overcome. 
From  this  time  forward,  the  Papacy  could  reckon  on 
the  Friars  ;  and  a  new  chapter  of  Catholic  achieve- 
ments was  beginning. 

No  such  poetic  legend  flings  its  light  over  the 
simple  but  earnest  commencements  of  St.  Dominic 
(1170-1221).  A  grave  Spanish  hidalgo,  a  learned 
Canon  of  Osma,  he  was  always  well  seen  in  Rome. 
The  idea  of  poverty  with  him  was  not  original ;  he 
took  it  from  St.  Francis  ;  and  while  the  Umbrian 
wanderer  would  have  no  stately  houses  built,  and 
forbade  his  companions  to  teach  in  the  Universities 


ST.   DOMINIC  317 

or  accept  graces  of  any  kind  soever  from  the  Roman 
Court,  Dominic  followed  older  precedents,  encouraged 
the  study  of  the  sciences — kindled  thereto  by  the 
glories  of  Moslem  Spain — and  adapted  to  his  own 
St.  Augustine's  Rule.  His  brethren  have  been  happily 
termed  the  Jesuits  of  the  thirteenth  century.  They 
were  preaching  Friars,  like  their  friends  or  rivals  the 
Franciscans,  bringing  the  Gospel  into  streets  and 
market-places,  not  always  to  the  delight  of  the  silent 
secular  clergy  or  the  gentlemanly  and  often  indolent 
monks.  But  religion  revived  ;  a  wave  of  mystic 
enthusiasm  swept  over  Europe  ;  and  gifts  began  to 
pour  in  which  it  would  have  been  well  for  these 
reformers  had  they  declined.  Their  palmy  days 
lasted  till  near  the  end  of  the  century.  Perhaps  the 
chief  works  they  accomplished  were  to  furnish  the 
Holy  See  with  its  own  spiritual  militia  ;  to  put  down 
heresy  by  means  of  the  Inquisition  ;  to  create  a 
synthesis  of  ideas  in  which  Aristotle's  philosophy 
became  a  prelude  to  Christian  dogma  ;  and  to  knit 
up  the  middle  and  working  classes,  over  which  the 
Catholic  Hierarchy  had  lost  its  hold,  into  a  strong 
confederation  of  orthodox  believers.  In  this  man}-- 
sided  enterprise  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  may  claim 
the  larger  influence,  Francis  or  Dominic.  But  we 
cannot  imagine  the  later  Middle  Age  without  iti^llii^/ 
friars  ;  the  schools  of  philosophy  without  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  ;  or  religion  itself  without  the  Poor  Man  of 
Assisi. 

From  these  heights  we  come  down  by  a  vecy  rapid 
descent  to  kings  and  princes.  Philip  Augustus  of 
France  had  married  Ingeburga  of  Denmark  with  a 


3l8  ST.    FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 

view  to  prosecuting  over  England  some  shadowy 
claims  derived  from  the  famous  Knut.  The  lady  did 
not  please  him ;  on  the  score  of  affinity  (in  the  Middle 
Ages  disastrously  extended)  Philip  divorced  her,  with 
the  assent  of  the  courtly  Cardinal  of  Rheims.  Inge- 
burga  made  appeal  to  Pope  Coelestine  III.  ;  but  she 
was  shut  up  in  the  castle  of  Beaurepaire  and  the 
King  married  Agnes  of  Meran.  At  this  point  in 
1 198  Innocent  took  up  the  Danish  quarrel.  He  sent 
Cardinal  Peter  of  Capua  to  demand  that  the  P>ench 
should  make  peace  with  England,  undertake  a  new 
crusade,  and  acknowledge  Ingeburga's  rights.  With 
his  subjects  Philip  was  not  popular.  He  granted  a 
truce  ;  was  willing  to  take  the  cross  ;  but  would  never 
give  up  Agnes.  The  usual  consequences  followed. 
At  Dijon  Cardinal  Peter  suspended  religious  services 
all  over  France  ;  the  nation  was  awed  and  irritated  ; 
Philip's  nobles  insisted  on  his  submission  ;  and  at 
Soissons  in  1201  he  consented  to  admit  Ingeburga  as 
his  lawful  wife.  His  partner  in  this  great  scandal, 
Agnes,  had  passed  away ;  but  during  the  troubled 
years  down  to  1212  Ingeburga  was  queen  merely  in 
name.  Innocent  had  protected  the  law  of  marriage  ; 
nor  did  he  deal  harshly  with  the  King  or  even  with 
Agnes  of  Meran.  It  was  France  that  suffered, 
according  to  the  Horatian  maxim  here  and  after- 
wards fulfilled  to  the  letter,  Delirant  reges  ;  plectuntur 
Achivi :  "Kings  play  mad  tricks,  the  people  pay  for 
them." 

But  interdict  was  growing  dangerously  common. 
Similar  disagreements  arose  from  causes  matrimonial 
south    of    the     Pyrenees.       Innocent    annulled    the 


ROYAL   DIVORCES  319 

marriage  between  Alfonso  of  Leon  and  Berengaria 
of  Castile,  as  Coelestine  III.  had  done  before  him,  and 
with  like  penalties  in  case  of  disobedience ;  the  ban 
lasted  nearly  five  years,  after  which  Berengaria 
retired  to  a  convent.  Again,  the  King  of  Navarre, 
having  made  a  treaty  with  the  Moors,  was  deposed  ; 
his  realm  would  have  been  annexed  to  Arragon  but 
for  a  seasonable  composition  of  terms  which  he  made 
with  his  rivals.  Yet  Pedro  the  Arragonese,  eight 
years  before  he  won  the  battle  of  Navas  de  Tolosa, 
had  entered  on  a  more  than  doubtful  marriage, 
against  which  Innocent  did  not  utter  one  syllable 
of  protest.  Neither  did  he  open  his  lips  when 
John,  King  of  England,  sent  away  his  wife,  daughter 
of  the  Earl  of  Gloucester,  and  took  from  his  own 
vassal  the  Count  de  la  Marche  Isabella,  his  betrothed 
consort.  This  shameful  deed  cost  England  the 
sovereignty  of  Maine,  Touraine,  and  Anjou  ;  but  the 
Pope  had  need  of  allies  against  the  Plmperor  Philip, 
and  counting  on  the  dissolute  John  he  let  it  pass. 
For  the  moment  John  was  gained  over. 

John  had  lost  at  Chateau  Gaillard  the  Continental 
dominions  of  his  house.  He  was  destined  to  make 
up  for  one  crime  by  committing  another  and  thereby 
to  secure  to  the  English  people  their  chartered  rights, 
coming  down  from  old  Teuton  customs  and  prece- 
dents. The  Pope  himself  unwittingly  and  unwillingly 
led  the  way.  A  quarrel,  by  no  means  singular, 
between  the  monks  of  Canterbury  when  the  See  had 
fallen  v^acant  threw  the  choice  upon  Innocent,  who 
appointed  Stephen  Langton,  Cardinal  of  San 
Crisogono    (1207).       Langton    was    a    "scholar    of 


320  ST.    FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 

European  fame,  star  of  the  University  of  Paris," 
and  in  morals  unimpeachable.  But  John,  who  had 
named  De  Grey  of  Norwich  to  the  Primacy,  would 
not  suffer  this  Roman  Englishman  to  set  foot  in  his 
kingdom.  Once  more  the  tremendous  machinery  of 
the  interdict  was  brought  into  play  (March,  1208). 
Public  festivals,  ceremonies,  and  sacraments  were 
abolished  ;  only  baptism  of  infants  and  the  Eucharist 
for  the  dying  were  permitted  ;  the  daily  life  of  the 
nation  came  to  a  standstill,  as  if  plague  and  famine 
ruled  in  the  land.  John  had  his  prelates  and  his 
ministers  who  took  no  heed  of  interdicts  ;  he  could 
.seize  the  revenues  of  bishoprics,  abbeys,  and  parishes, 
and  put  the  clergy  outside  the  law.  Himself  furious, 
wanton,  disbelieving,  but  as  energetic  as  ruthless, 
guilty  of  enormous  and  unspeakable  sins,  he  laughed 
to  scorn  the  spiritual  censures  of  Innocent.  Excom- 
municate, he  held  out  still  ;  but  after  four  years  of 
confusion  and  misery,  in  1212,  he  was  deposed;  his 
crown  and  kingdom  might  be  seized  by  any  Christian 
soldier  ;  and  Philip  Augustus,  though  not  a  pattern 
Christian,  flattered  himself  that  he  was  th^raSn. 

What  followed  is  written  in  all  our^TJstorianfcX^he 
crusade  was  announced  at  Soissons  m  presence  of 
Langton  and  other  Bishops — traitors  according,  to 
modern  law,  patriots  and  good  Christians  In  the 
opinion  of  medieval  Europe.  John  gathered  sixty 
thousand  men  on  Barham  Down  ;  he  put  forward,  or 
hinted  at,  a  treaty  with  the  Spanish  Mohammedans ; 
yet  he  negotiated  with  Innocent  in  spite  of  all ;  and 
he  yielded  to  the  diplomacy,  the  menaces,  and  the 
imposing  person  of  Pandulph,  the  legate,  a  man  of 


JOHN,    KING    OF    EXGI.AXl). 

[FtV/ii  a  Print  in  the  British  A/nseum.) 
22 


322  ST.   FRANCIS  AND    THE   FRIARS 

consummate  ability,  who  held  a  conference  with  him 
at  Dover.  The  King  gave  up  everything.  On 
Ascension  Eve,  12 13,  in  the  Temple  Church,  he 
made  the  great  surrender ;  England  and  Ireland 
were  to  be  fiefs  of  the  Holy  See,  paying  annual 
tribute  of  a  thousaiicL  marks  ;  the  deed  was  subscribed 
by  John,  his  bishops  and  nobles,  and  he  took  the 
vassal's  oath  of  fealty.  There  was  now  no  kingdom 
in  the  West  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  did  not  hold 
of  Innocent  III.,  except  France. 

Acts  of  feudal  homage  were  so  familiar  to  the 
time  that  John's  submission  called  forth  no  protest ; 
England  was  hardly  yet  a  nation.  Pandulph  now 
bade  Philip  Augustus  put  back  his  sword  into  its 
sheath  ;  but  France  stood  behind  the  King,  eager  to 
attempt  a  new  Norman  Conquest  of  Britain.  Yet 
the  league  which  had  threatened  Lackland  melted 
away.  He  himself  invaded  Poitou  ;  stirred  up  the 
Count  of  Flanders  and  the  Emperor  Otho  to  attack 
Philip  at  Bouvines  ;  but,  in  their  persons,  was  defeated 
at  this  small  yet  epoch-making  battle  which  delivered 
France  for  ever  from  the  German  yoke.  When  he 
returned  across  the  sea,  barons  and  people  were 
confederate  against  him.  Innocent,  by  his  Legate, 
would  have  shielded  this  incomparable  tyrant ;  on 
the  other  side  rose  Stephen  Langton  who,  says  a 
modern  writer,  "  from  the  moment  of  his  landing  in 
England  had  assumed  the  constitutional  position  of 
the  Primate  as  champion  of  the  old  English  customs 
and  law,  against  the  personal  despotism  of  the  kings." 
He  had  compelled  John  to  swear  that  he  would 
observe  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor.     Now  in 


INNOCENT  ANNULS    THE    CHARTER  323 

a  meeting  of  the  Barons  at  St.  Paul's  he  produced 
Henry  I.'s  neglected  Charter.  Bouvines  assured  the 
popular  triumph.  The  Legate  was  recalled  ;  but 
Innocent  menaced  with  anathema  the  Barons'  alli- 
ance ;  he  rebuked  the  Archbishop,  and  sent  back 
Pandulph.  War  broke  out.  The  "  Army  of  God 
and  Holy  Church,"  led  by  Fitz  Walter,  consecrated 
by  Langton,  though  acting  as  a  genuine  peace-maker 
throughout,  appeared  before  Northampton.  John 
lost  his  tyrant's  sway  without  a  battle.  At  Runny- 
mede,  in  presence  of  Pandulph,  he  signed  Magna 
Charta.     It    was    the   birthday   of  English    freedom 

(1215). 

How  Innocent  took  these  famous  proceedings  is 
too  well  known.  An  accomplished  and  imperious 
statesman,  he  was  no  prophet  ;  and  with  his  legal 
Southern  mind  he  failed  to  understand  the  North. 
John  was  his  man  by  public  acknowledgment ;  as 
overlord  he  annulled  the  Great  Charter,  calling  it 
"  vile  and  base,"  suspended  Langton  from  his  office, 
and  renewed  the  interdict.  The  City  of  London 
answered  boldly  that  "  the  ordering  of  secular  matters 
appertaineth  not  to  the  Pope."  Simon  Langton, 
brother  of  the  Primate,  bade  his  countrymen  disre- 
gard these  censures.  And  Louis  the  Dauphin, 
setting  at  naught  Innocent's  prohibition,  landed  in 
Kent,  called  thither  by  the  people.  Langton  was 
in  Rome,  attending  on  the  Lateran  Council,  frowned 
upon  by  the  Pope,  and  held  in  a  sort  of  imprison- 
ment. From  this  confusion  two  events  cleared  the 
air.  Innocent  died;  John  within  a  few  months^, 
followed  him,  though  not  perhaps  to  the  same  place.  ^'/j^^'^J. 


324  ST.   FRANCIS  AND    THE   FRIARS 

Henry  III.  was  crowned  ;  Prince  Louis,  after  the  Fair 
of  Lincoln  and  some  other  fighting,  retired  across  the 
Channel  ;  and  William  Earl  Marshal,  in  conjunction 
with  the  Papal  Legate,  issued  Magna  Charta  once 
more. 

Inno<c€nt's  last  enterprise,  and  the  crowning,  in 
truth,  of  that  immense  edifice  which  he  had  so  largely 
built  up,  was  the  Fourth  Council  of  the  Lateran,  held 
in  November,  1215.  It  was  attended  by  412  bishops, 
eight  hundred  abbots  and  priors,  the  Masters  of  the 
Orders  of  Chivalry,  and  a  host  of  secular  representa- 
tives. "  With  desire  have  I  desired  to  eat  this  Pasch 
with  you,"  quoted  the  greatesLof  medieval  Popes, 
and  tears  streamed  dowrrhis  cheeks  as  lie  u^eTcomed 
united  Christendom  in  his  opening  discourse.  The 
three  thousand  four  hundred  Briefs  which  in  these 
seventeen  years  he  had  issued  were  to  be  wrought 
by  Conciliar  decree  into  a  legislation  binding  from 
Servia  to  Iceland,  covering  the  whole  of  human 
existence  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  upheld 
by  penalties  that  neither  haughtiest  monarch  nor 
meanest  peasant  could  escape.  But  the  immediate 
occasion  was  to  settle  the  succession  of  Languedoc, 
to  put  down  the  Cathari,  and  to  enable  the  Pope,  as 
Captain-General  of  Christians,  to  raise  men  and 
money  for  a  fresh  Crusade. 

This  all-embracing  Code  was  no  free  compact 
between  rulers  and  subjects  ;  it  rested  on  a  Divine 
Right,  and  was  enforced  by  rigorous  sanctions.  It 
took  for  granted  that  all  except  the  Jews,  now  com- 
pelled to  put  on  a  yellow  badge,  who  claimed  the 
protection  of  the  laws,  must  be  practising  orthodox 


FOURTH  LATE  RAN  COUNCIL  325 

Christians.  They  were  to  confess  and  receive  the 
Eucharist  once  a  year  ;  to  pay  tithes  and  other  church 
dues  ;  and  not  to  touch  the  freedom  of  the  clergy, 
who  enjoyed  large  immunities  and  were  an  inde- 
pendent, self-taxing  corporation,  subject  in  every 
land  to  the  Pope  alone  as  to  their  spiritual  sovereign. 
By  a  species  of  eminent  domain  he  could  appoint  to 
livings,  canonries,  and  bishoprics  whenever  he  so 
decided  ;  from  all  the  clergy  he  might  exact  contri- 
butions, as  he  judged  fit,  for  the  general  good  of  the 
Church  ;  his  power  of  dispensation  was  limited  only 
by  the  strict  terms  of  the  New  Testament ;  and  he 
owed  no  account  to  any  earthly  tribunal  for  his 
actions. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  rulers  were  liable,  in  their 
quality  of  baptized  Christians,  to  be  admonished, 
censured,  and  deposed  by  the  Pope  if,  in  his  eyes, 
they  had  broken  the  laws  which  he  enacted.  The 
Lateran  Council  of  1 179  had  released  from  their  oath 
of  allegiance  all  subjects  of  a  prince  fallen  into  heresy, 
so  long  as  he  did  not  repent.  This  Council  of  121 5 
directed,  says  Cardinal  Hergenrother,  who  gives  the 
decree,  "that  temporal  sovereigns  if  they  neglected 
to  cleanse  their  kingdoms  of  heresy  should  be  excom- 
municated by  the  Metropolitan  ;  in  case  they  made 
no  satisfaction  within  a  year,  the  Pope  was  to  be 
informed,  in  order  that  he  might  declare  the  vassals 
free  from  their  allegiance,  and  give  over  the  land  to 
Catholic  rulers."  To  this  engagement  every  man 
that  entered  upon  office,  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual, 
was  bound  to  subscribe  by  oath.  Hence,  if  he  did 
not   fulfil   its  conditions,  the    law   held   that  he  had 


326  ST.    FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 

forfeited  his  dignity  ;  and,  as  in  illustration,  Raymund 
of  Toulouse  had  been  deprived  of  his  vast  dominions 
and  even  condemned  to  exile. 

"  As  a  general  rule,"  says  Hergenrother  once  more, 
"excommunicated  persons  who  were  not  reconciled 
within  a  given  time  forfeited  their  civil  rights  and 
incurred  political  proscription."  In  this  Lateran 
Council,  and  in  1220  by  the  laws  of  Frederick  II.,  it 
was  laid  down  that  such  as  made  no  satisfaction 
witiiin  a  year  should  be  deemed  "infamous,"  in- 
capable of  pleading  though  liable  to  action  at  law, 
and  deprived  of  dignity,  and  office.  The  excom- 
municate were  imprisoned,  and  fined  heavily  at  short 
intervals  ;  their  property  was  confiscated,  and  them- 
selves by  many  Councils  were  judged,  if  persistent,  as 
suspect  of  heresy,  which  led  to  examination  under 
torture  and  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law. 

What  then  was  heresy  ?  The  Canonists,  like  the 
Civilians,  did  not  shrink  from  constructive  reason- 
ing which  tended  to  make  heresy  rather  a  moral 
temper  than  a  mental  attitude  ;  it  was  "  contempt  of 
the  power  of  the  Keys,"  disloyal  neglect  of  the 
Church's  jurisdiction,  and  might  be  inferred  from 
silence,  or  a  secluded  way  of  life,  or  consorting  with 
others  already  under  the  ban.  Besides  the  "  greater  " 
excommunication,  which  struck  the  guilty,  there  was 
the  "  lesser  "  inflicted  on  all  who  held  intercourse  with 
them.  Gregory  VII.  in  1078  had  relaxed  these  terms 
so  far  as  to  permit  a  man's  wife,  children,  and 
domestics,  not  to  forsake  him — a  regulation  which 
Innocent  III.  acknowledged,  while  insisting  that 
none,    except    these    few,   should    eat,   drink,   or    do 


TOMU   OF   ST.    DOMINIC — BOLOGNA,    A.D.    I22I. 


32^  ST.    FRANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 

business  with  the  excommunicate.  It  was  not  for- 
bidden to  supply  them  with  the  bare  necessaries  of 
life.  But  again  the  lawyers  felt  disposed  to  merge 
the  lesser  anathema  in  the  greater,  as  is  shown  by  the 
mild  protest  of  the  Council  of  Lyons  in  1245,  which 
enacts  that  canonical  warning  shall  first  be  given 
and  complicity  proved  before  this  be  done.  On  the 
whole,  travellers,  pilgrims,  merchants,  were  to  refrain 
like  their  fellow-citizens  from  intercourse  with  these 
spiritual  outlaws  ;  and  no  obedience  of  any  sort  was 
due  to  them. 

Neither  the  Bishops  nor  the  Pope  undertook  to 
pronounce  on  purely  secular  causes  ;  ''  I  judge  the 
sin,  not  the  fief,"  said  Innocent ;.  and  in  like  manner 
the  Holy  See  did  not  itself  depose  Kings  or  burn 
heretics.  The  Canons  repeatedly  forbade  clerics  to 
be  partakers  in  a  judgment  of  blood.  Hence  we  see 
two  Courts,  the  spiritual,  presided  over  by  ecclesi- 
astics, and  the  lay  by  secular  magistrates,  which  must 
combine  to  make  the  outlawry  effective  and  to  bring 
persons  condemned  for  heresy  or  other  religious 
offences  to  punishment.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
two  swords,  always  supposed,  often  expressed,  in 
Canon  Law,  summed  up  at  length  in  an  aphorism  by 
Boniface  VIII.  When  the  Church  delivered  a  culprit 
to  the  secular  arm,  it  was  the  duty  of  magistrates  to 
inflict  the  prescribed  penalties  ;  but,  except  by  using 
the  spiritual  weapons  of  anathema  and  interdict,  clerics 
had  no  means  of  coercing  the  lay  authorities.  Thus 
Canon  Law  rested  ultimately  on  public  opinion,  or 
religious  belief,  or  inherited  custom.  While  Europe 
was  Catholic  as   a   whole,  it   prevailed,  though  with 


LEGISLATION   CONCERNING   HERETICS  329 

frequent  and  ever-strengthening  protests  not  only 
against  its  abuses,  which  were  often  extreme,  but 
against  the  conception  out  of  which  it  arose.  When 
the  crown  overtopped  the  mitre,  that  mixed  jurisdic- 
tion, called  spiritual  but  in  fact  dealing  largely  with 
temporalities  and  immunities,  was  annexed  by  the 
sovereign.  It  has  now  been  so  strangely  transformed 
that  many  will  suppose  it  no  longer  to  exist.  Yet 
the  last  shadow  of  the  deposing  power  can  be  traced 
in  the  explicit  or  silent  compact,  according  to  which 
a  Catholic  King  may  not  occupy  the  throne  of 
England,  nor  a  Protestant  that  of  Hungary,  In 
either  case  the  sentence  would  be  carried  out  by  a 
democratic  Parliament;  but  the  principle  of  exclusion 
founded  on  religious  motives,  is  the  same  in  both. 

And  so  the  dream  of  Gregory  VII.  was  fulfilled. 
Innocent  III.,  "a  man  of  commanding  genius  and 
extraordinary  force  of  character,"  as  one  P2nglish 
historian  reckons  him  ;  gentle,  wise,  blameless  in 
private  life,  according  to  another  ;  might  have  said  in 
his  Lateran  Council,  "  Here  is  my  throne,  bid  Kings 
come  bow  to  it."  His  aims  were  lofty, as  high  indeed 
as  "  the  eternal  principles  of  justice,  righteousness, 
and  humanity";  never  personal  or  self-regarding;  in 
a  certain  sense,  even  those  who  do  not  bend  before 
the  Papal  power  have  admitted  that  he  carried  on 
"  the  noblest  and  most  religious  contest  for  ascendency 
over  the  world  of  man."  That  he,  unarmed,  without 
a  single  soldier  at  his  beck  or  call,  should  have 
brought  to  their  knees  German  Kaisers,  and  French, 
English,  or  Spanish  Kings  ;  reigning  like  some  being 
from   a   higher    realm    over   their  nations,  which  he 


330 


ST.   FRANCIS  AND    THE   FRIARS 


smote  as  with  thunderbolts  ;  is  a  witness  to  the  faith 
that  was  yet  in  them,  and  to  his  peremptory  greatness. 
He  is  calm,  majestic,  invincible  ;  he  rules  by  edicts 
and  lieutenants  from  Byzantium  to  the  borders  of  the 
West ;  and  he  dies  at  fifty-four,  worn  out  by  seventeen 
years  of  crowded  and  incessant  undertakings,  which 
all  seemed  to  end  in  victory. 


I'KRUGIA. 


Yet  we  pause  over  the  verdict  and  dare  not  call  him 
saint.  Of  this  astonishing  ag^e  the  hero  is  Francis 
rather  "than  IfTnbcent.  The  mignty  Pontiff  strikes 
with  mailed  warriors  upon  heretics,  and  exterminates 
without  converting  the  unhappy  thousands  of  Pro- 
vence. He  yields  to  subtleties  and  dissimulation  ;  he 
plays  off  one  Christian  ruler  against  another,  and  is 


LAW  AND    GOSPEL  331 

answerable  for  wars  in  Germany,  the  Netherlands, 
Italy,  England  ;  he  cannot  keep  within  bounds  the 
rapacity  of  his  Court  ;  personally  just-minded,  he  lets 
a  system  of  exactions  flourish  that  was  to  undermine 
the  Papal  grandeur  and  almost  bury  the  Church  in 
its  ruins.  Never,  perhaps,  did  any  Pope  illustrate 
more  decisively  the  strength  and  weakness  of  Canon 
Law,  which  appealed  to  men's  fears  while  taking  too 
little  account  of  their  affections.  Long  spaces  of 
interdict  tempted  them  to  view  with  growing  indiffer- 
ence the  services  of  religion,  granted  or  withheld  for 
reasons,  too  often  not  so  much  spiritual  as  worldly 
and  diplomatic.  If  Mass  and  Sacraments  could  thus 
be  taken  away,  were  not  pious  minds  thrown  back 
upon  themselves,  and  might  not  the  clergy  be  dis- 
pensed with?  Neither  Innocent  nor  his  advisers 
could  have  prevented  the  outbreak  of  what  was 
already  Protestantism,  had  the  friars  been  wanting 
whom  Francis  called  up  in  their  preaching  hosts  and 
sent  through  Christendom.  Most  opportune  was  the 
alliance  of  Law  and  Gospel,  bearing  witness  to  the 
amazing  genius,  as  men  speak,  of  that  Catholic 
Church  wherein  both  could  flourish  side  by  side,  and 
a  period  of  expansion  grow  as  by  magic  out  of  a 
period  of  repression  hitherto  unequalled  in  Europe. 

But  Innocent  on  his  judgment-seat  is  less  winning, 
and  to  our  later  age  far  less  comprehensible,  than  the 
lowly  friar,  who  improvises  popular  chants  instead  of 
solemn  decrees  ;  who  begins  Italian  literature;  inspires 
Giotto  and  Dante  ;  preaches  universal  brotherhood  ; 
looks  beyond  the  schools  to  Nature  and  its  everlasting 
beauty;  is  tender  to  all  forms  of  disease  ;  and  converts 


332 


ST.    FJ^ANCIS   AND    THE   FRIARS 


P 


His 
the 
the 
;  at 


from  vice  by  the  simple  joy  of  loving.  Sinai  with  its 
thunders  may  be  grand  ;  Galilee  is  sweet.  That 
Innocent,  by  measures  of  awful  severity,  preserved 
European  civilisation  has  been  asserted,  and  on 
grounds  not  easily  shaken.  Francis  did  more, 
yj/vision  of  faith  and  charity  ;  of  a  Christian  life  in 
world  without  vows,  yet  in  accordance  with 
Gospel  ;  pure,  compassionate,  laborious,  cheerful 
peace  with  God  and  man  ;  is  one  that  can  never  grow 
old.  It  is  higher,  by  all  the  grace  of  the  New 
Testament,  than  any  society  which  we  have  yet 
realised;  and  to  say  that  Innocent  III.,  while  allowing 
it,  still  deemed  it  impossible,  is  to  mark  the  limit 
beyond   which  he   could  not  pass. 

On  July  1 6,  1216,  this  tamer  of  kings  died  at 
Perugia.  He  was  succeeded  two  days  after  by 
Honorius   III. 


XXI 


EXCOMMUNICATION— WARS — FATE  OF  FREDERICK  II 


(1216-1250) 


Eighty-seven  years,  in  round  numbers,  are  left  of 
the  story  which  we  have  undertaken  to  tell.  From 
now  onward  it  becomes  a  drama  in  four  acts,  of  almost 
Greek  simplicity,  thoui^h  with  many  a  stirring  episode, 
and  the  background  is  ever  that  Sicilian  Paradise  over 
which  the  Popes  claimed  to  be  feudal  lords.  The 
first  act,  down  to  1250,  is  filled  with  the  exploits, 
sufferings,  triumphs,  and  death  of  Frederick  II.  It  is 
followed  by  a  sequel  lasting  till  the  execution  at 
Naples  of  young  Conradin,heir  of  the  Hohenstauffen, 
in  1268.  Act  the  third  brings  on  Charles  of  Anjou 
and  the  French  domineering  in  Norman  Italy,  but 
suddenly  blasted  to  pieces  by  the  Sicilian  Vespers  of 
1282.  The  closing,  unexpected,  but  decisive  fourth 
act  shows  on  our  stage  Philip  the  P^air  at  death-grips 
with  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  When  Colonna  and 
Nogaret,  ministers  of  the  French  King's  vengeance, 
seize  the  P'ather  of  Christians  in  his  palace  at  Anagni, 


334  FATE    OF  FREDERICK  II. 

pull  him   from   his  throne,  and   kill   him   with  their 

/      shameful  handling,  the  Papal  Monarchy  is  no  more. 

/     Never   again    does    the    Pontifex    Maximus   bestow 

/      crowns,  or  depose  Kings,  or  exercise  to  any  effective 

]    purpose   the   over-lordship   hitherto   granted  him  in 

I    Europe,  which  had  made  him  supreme  from  Russia  to 

\  the  Western  Sea.     His  spiritual  dominion  remains  ; 

I  and  he  will  in  time  be  absolute  master  of  Rome  and 

VJts  territories;  but  with  Boniface  VIII.  comes  to  an 

0nd  medieval  Christendom. 

In  this  mighty  struggle  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
lost  its  meaning  and  melted  to  a  shadow  ;  Pope  and 
Emperor  between  them  ruined  the  system  of  which 
Charlemagne  had  drawn  out  the  lines  and  Dante  sang 
the  exceeding  glory.  A  new  idea,  that  of  independent 
nations,  with  no  Caesar  above  them,  was  coming  to 
the  birth.  The  great  Roman  unity — a  Theocratic 
King  seated  beside  a  Feudal  Pontiff — broke  up  when 
the  Hohenstauffen  defied  the  Papacy  and  Clement 
IV.  saw  the  blood  of  Frederick's  grandson  staining 
the  scaffold  at  Naples.  While  the  combatants  im- 
agined that  one  of  them  must  be  victor,  both  were 
surprised  by  the  growing  power  of  France  ;  the  firm 
and  haughty  legislation  of  Edward  I.  of  England  ; 
tWe  end  of  the  Crusades ;  and  the  anarchic  fourteenth 
cehtury.  The  Hohenstauffen  sank  ;  the  Popes  went 
into  a  Babylonish  captivity  at  Avignon.  Such  is  the 
spectacle  to  which  we  invite  our  readers'  attention, 
who  will  find  that  these  far-off  events  have  had  on 
their  own  story  an  influence  no  less  direct  than 
decisive. 

It  was  now  a  recognised  duty  of  the  Pope  to  pro- 


FREDERICK    TAKES    THE    CROSS  335 

claim  the  Crusade,  binding  it  on  Kings  whether  they 
would    or    no,    and    raising    contributions    all    over 
Christendom  to    carry  it   out.     Honorius,  mild   and 
feeble  in  health,  a  contrast  to  his  adamantine  prede- 
cessor, had  stirred  up  Andrew  of  Hungary,  and  seen 
with  joy  the  capture  of  Damietta  in   12 19  from   the 
Egyptians,   whose    offer    to    restore    Jerusalem    was 
treated     with    scorn.      Christians    still     dreamt     of 
conquering  Islam  on  Mount  Zion  ;  and  Frederick  II. 
aspired  to  lead  the  armies  of  the  Cross,  if  he  might 
be   Emperor    in    fact,  and    his  son   Henry    King   of 
the     Romans.       His    enemy,    Otho,    was    dead    in 
1218  ;    his   counsellor   was    Hermann    of  Salza,  the 
Teutonic    Master ;    at    Fulda    the    German    Princes 
gathered  joyfully  about  Frederick  ;  would  Honorius 
yield  to  him  and  his   the   Imperial   Crown?     There 
had    always    been    a    party  in   Rome    hostile  to  the 
Suabians  ;    they    charged     Frederick    himself    with 
designs  which  he  does  not  seem  yet  to  have  enter- 
tained ;  but  the  Pope  would,  under  no  circumstances, 
grant   him   the   joint    investiture  of  Sicily   and    the 
Empire.     As     Voltaire    observes    with    justice,    the 
Italians  did  not  want  a  foreigner  to  lord  it  over  them; 
the  Pope  considered  that  his  freedom  would  be  lost  if  \ 
he  were  shut  in  by  German  territories  on  all  sides 
but  he  had  consented  to  certain  terms  when,  at  the 
Diet  of  P^rankfort,  young   Henry  was  elected  without 
his  leave  as  Frederick's   successor.     Still  no  quarrel 
broke    out.     The    Hohenstauffen    Prince    descended 
upon   Italy ;    he    was    crowned    in    St.    Peter's ;    he 
solemnly  took  the  Cross  from  Cardinal  Ugolino.     He 
swore  to   set  out   in   August,   1221  ;  and  meanwhile 


! 


336  FATE    OF  FREDERICK   II. 

surrendered  to  Honorius  the  great  and  constantly- 
disputed  inheritance  of  Matilda.  His  concessions  of 
Church  immunity  were  so  large  that  we  can  scarcely 
believe  them  sincere.  His  laws  acrainst  heretics  re- 
peated  and  enforced  the  decrees  of  I.ateran.  But  he 
ly  had  gained  the  double  investiture  ;  he  soon  showed 
that  rebellious  clerics  in  Apulia  would  appeal  in  vain 
to  their  surplice  and  shaven  crown  ;  nor  did  he, 
though  Damietta  fell  in  1221,  press  on  the  expedition 
to  which  he  had  pledged  himself  These  are  the 
facts ;  that  Frederick  apologized  for  them  could 
never  set  him  free  from  the  first  duties  of  an 
orthodox   King. 

After  two  years  spent  in  Sicilian  troubles  and 
delights,  a  new  agreement  was  made.  Frederick,  in 
August,  1227,  would  sail  for  Palestine  with  a  thousand 
cavaliers  ;  he  would  pledge  a  hundred  thousand 
ounces  of  gold  as  a  forfeit  if  he  did  not  embark  ;  his 
successors  were  to  be  bound  like  himself,  and  all 
under  interdict.  He  wedded  lolanthe,  daughter  of 
King  John,  and  immediately  took  the  style  of  King 
of  Jerusalem.  In  these  actions  we  perceive  a  chival- 
rous, unsteady,  medieval  Byron,  passionate,  sensuous, 
not  so  much  crafty  as  fired  with  the  spirit  of  adventure, 
drawn  many  ways  by  the  calls  of  a  situation  to  which 
no  genius  was  equal.  Engelbert  of  Cologne  had  been 
murdered  ;  Italy  was  in  flames  ;  the  Emperor  struck 
hard  at  his  rebels  like  a  Ghibelline  ;  an  immense  Lom- 
bard League  was  forming  against  him.  Honorius 
began  to  remonstrate  in  the  language  of  Innocent, 
and  upheld  the  Lombards  as  though  they  owed  no 
allegiance  to  the  Empire.     At  this  critical   moment 


km 


>t;ER,    Kl.W;    OF    SICILY,    RECKiVK.-.    iilr,    cRuWa     i- kc).\1    CHRIST 

{Mosaic  in  la  Martorana^  Palermo.) 


338  FATE   OF  FREDERICK   II, 

he  died,  leaving  the  succession  to  Cardinal  Ugolino, 
henceforth  to  be  known  as  Gregory  IX.  (March,  1227). 
Of  this  extraordinary  man  the  tale  is  told  that  he 
was  elected  Pope  at  eighty-six  and  lived  to  be  a 
hundred.  Handsome,  grave,  devout,  impetuous, 
learned,  and  resolute,  he  had  been  the  attached  friend 
of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Clare,  deep  in  the  counsels  of 
his  cousin  Innocent  III.,  and  on  affectionate  terms 
with  Frederick.  But  the  old  Pontiff  deemed  his 
Canon  Law,  which  he  was  now  digesting  into  the 
Decretals,  to  be  supreme  without  appeal  or  adversary. 
The  youthful  Emperor  did  not  take  that  view.  He 
sat  on  the  throne  of  Justinian  ;  he  was  himself  the 
embodiment  of  Roman  Law  ;  he  held  authority  over 
the  world  by  Right  Divine.  To  the  clerics  of  the 
Curia  he  opposed  his  lawyers  ;  his  Pietro  della  Vigna 
would  be  a  match  for  any  Cardinal ;  nor  did  he 
hesitate  to  claim  a  power  at  the  Capitol  to  which  the 
Lateran  never  yet  had  willingly  submitted.  He  was 
a  strangely  mingled  character,  reminding  us  of  the 
Moorish  Sultans,  his  contemporaries,  rather  than 
of  the  unpolished  Northern  chiefs  from  whom  he 
descended.  In  outward  looks  he  was  Norman,  fair, 
slender,  ruddy-haired,  with  blue-  eyes,  and  a  winning 
tongue  ;  but  his  gift  of  gay  improvisation,  his  softness 
of  living,  his  metaphysical  talk,  his  polygamies,  and 
what  else  may  not  be  named  but  was  currently  re- 
ported of  him,  bring  before  us  a  light  Epicurean,  to 
whom  the  repressive  doctrines  of  Gregory  IX.  must 
have  been  intolerable.  That  he  believed  in  no 
religion  at  all  was  the  rumour  of  the  day  ;  but,  in  the 
contest  now  approaching,  had  he  been  as  orthodox  as 


FIRST  EXCOMMUNICATION  339 

St  Louis,  there  were  elements  of  dissension  which 
could  not  be  reconciled.  Gregory  struck  the  first 
blow. 

The  moment  he  was  crowned,  his  word  went  out 
for  the  Crusade,  and  he  fastened  an  instant  obligation 
upon  the  Emperor.  He  was  equally  severe  with  the 
Lombard  cities,  delaying  to  keep  their  engagement ; 
they  must  obey  Cajsar  and  despatch  their  own  soldiers 
to  Palestine.  From  Anagni  he  addressed  a  vehement 
rebuke,  which  was  undoubtedly  deserved,  to  the  Court 
of  Palermo,  where  Jews  and  Mohammedans  held 
great  sway  and  a  heathen  licence  flourished.  Sicily 
was  becoming  a  second  Provence  ;  the  Pope  may  well 
have  dreaded  lest  Christian  faith  should  hardly 
survive  Christian  morals  ;  and  he  despatched  his 
Friar  Gualo  to  prophesy  against  the  dissolute  Prince 
who  had  bound  on  himself  the  cross  of  his  dying 
Lord.  P^rederick  began  to  negotiate  with  the  Sultan 
of  Egypt,  Kameel.  Yet  his  preparations  for  the 
voyage  were  extensive  ;  he  sailed  round  to  Otranto  ; 
met  the  German  expedition  of  which  thousands 
perished  in  the  amazing  Southern  heats ;  himself 
embarked  ;  but  after  three  days  hastily  returned  to 
port.  Then  he  broke  uj)  the  armament,  and  giving 
out  that  he  was  ill,  retired  to  Pozzuoli  (summer 
1227). 

At  Michaelmas  the  Pope  excommunicated  this 
recreant  crusader  in  language  at  once  passionate 
and  scornful.  He  made  out  a  strong  case,  if 
not  altogether  convincing ;  twice  he  repeated  the 
censure,  of  which  its  subject  seemed  to  take  but 
little  heed  ;  yet   Frederick  did  answer,  by  appealing 


340  FATE    OF  FREDERICK  II. 

to  all  his  fellow-sovereigns  against  the  monstrous 
regiment  of  clerics.  He  made  friends  in  Rome. 
Gregory  during  Holy  Week  had  menaced  him  with 
deposition ;  a  few  days  afterwards  the  Frangipani 
raised  a  tumult  while  the  Pontiff  was  saying  Mass 
and  drove  him  out  of  the  City.  He  took  up  his 
residence  on  the  heights  of  Perugia.  It  was  soon 
announced  that  the  pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre 
had  turned  back  on  hearing  of  Frederick's  defection  ; 
but  news  came  that  Moeddin  of  Damascus,  who 
had  been  a  scourge  to  Christians,  was  dead,  and 
the  Emperor  set  sail  in  April,  1228.  Gregory  had 
forbidden  him  to  stir  till  the  interdict  was  raised  ;  he 
drew  into  revolt  the  churches  and  monasteries  of 
the  Sicilian  Kingdom  by  ordering  them  not  to  pay 
their  taxes  ;  he  called  P'rederick  a  pirate  and  other 
bad  names — all  on  grounds  which,  at  this  distance 
of  time,  do  not  appear  to  warrant  such  high-handed 
proceedings.  Attempts  at  reconciliation  came  from 
the  Emperor  ;  they  were  rejected  by  the  Pope. 

But  P'rederick,  who  now  lost  his  wife  lolanthe, 
sailed  to  Cyprus  and  thence  to  Acre,  with  about 
six  hundred  knights.  Two  friars  had  gone  swiftly 
before  him  ;  they  warned  the  clergy,  the  Templars, 
the  Hospitallers — by  no  means  friendly  to  his  Sicilian 
laws  which  put  them  under  civil  jurisdiction — that 
they  must  not  receive  the  excommunicate.  He  was 
opposed  on  landing  ;  he  could  gather  no  sufficient 
army;  and,  making  terms  with  the  Sultan  of  Cairo, 
he  entered  Jerusalem,  March  17,  1228.  At  once 
the  Archbishop  placed  the  city  under  a  ban,  int^r- 
dicting   the    Holy   Sepulchre    itself      These    fright- 


CROWNED   IN  JERUSALEM  341 

ful  dissensions,  carried  to  the  utmost  pitch  in  the 
presence  of  Islam,  strike  us  with  horror.  Had 
Frederick  been  more  of  a  Christian,  he  would  now 
have  shrunk  from  any  further  acts.  Yet  he  pro- 
ceeded to  crown  himself  in  the  desecrated  Church  of 
the  Sepulchre,  where  Hermann  of  Salza  read  his 
master's  defence,  which  was  a  loud  indictment  of 
Gregory.  Idle  tales,  exaggerated  or  wholly  false, 
depicted  the  Emperor  as  a  mere  infidel  ;  his  presence 
irritated  the  Moslems  and  was  a  scandal  to  the 
orthodox.  He  wrote  in  glowing  terms  to  Europe  of 
all  he  had  accomplished  ;  but  on  the  third  day  he 
left  Jerusalem ;  and  his  treaty,  denounced  by  Pope 
and  Patriarch,  came  to  nothing.  He  must  hasten 
home  ;  John  of  Brienne  was  invading  Apulia  ;  Albert 
of  Austria  had  been  tempted  t<3  throw  off  his  alle- 
giance ;  while  Gregory  was  proclaiming  a  crusade,  for 
which  he  demanded  benevolences  even  in  the  British 
Islands  (and  obtained  them)  to  put  down  the  sacri- 
legious Emperor.  A  Crusade  against  Caesar  [  It  was 
the  strangest  perversion  of  medieval  laws.  It  shocked 
Christendom,  l^ut  the  Pontiff  did  not  heed  remon- 
strance. He  joined  in  one  sweeping  anathema 
Frederick  with  all  possible  heretics  ;  condemned 
his  adherents  ;  and  set  his  subjects  free  from  their 
oaths. 

But  the  man  himself  was  in  Southern  Italy  once 
more.  He  drove  back  the  Papal  forces  which  had 
poured  over  into  Naples  ;  he  relieved  Capua ;  he 
settled  his  Saracens  at  Nocera.  With  his  squadrons 
bearing  the  Cross  on  their  armour  he  met  and  slew 
Gregory's  retainers,  who  held  aloft  St.  Peter's  Keys. 


342  FATE    OF  FREDERICK   II. 

No  sadder  moment  is  on  record  through  all  the 
sanguinary  and  confused  chronicle  of  that  century. 
The  friars  stood  by  the  Pope ;  but  clergy  and  laity 
were  in  high  dudgeon  with  him  ;  on  neither  side  of 
the  Alps  could  insurrection  be  stirred  up  ;  and  when 
the  Romans,  terrified  by  a  fearful  rising  of  the  Tiber, 
had  called  back  their  Pontiff  to  the  Lateran,  he  made 
peace  at  San  Germano  (June,  1230)  with  this  infidel 
whom  he  had  lately  drawn  in  the  blackest  colours. 
P>ederick  forgave  all  his  rebels  and  restored  clerical 
immunities  to  the  full.  He  gave  up  confiscated 
estates  ;  in  general  terms  he  submitted  ;  but  regarding 
Vhe  Crusade  or  the  Holy  Land  not  a  word  was  uttered 
on  either  side.  The  enemies  met  at  i\nagni,  em- 
braced, and,  as  Frederick  tells  us,  were  charmed  with 
one  another.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  these 
sudden,  dramatic  changes  which  are  so  frequent  in 
medieval  history.  Acts  and  speech  were  equally 
violent ;  enthusiasm,  liable  to  such  hot  fits  of  love 
and  hate,  takes  on  the  air  of  deep  dissimulation  ;  yet 
we  must  suppose  it  genuine.  The  nine  years'  peace 
which  followed  seems  to  confirm  our  better  thoughts 
of  men  who  to  rare  qualities  added  passions  not  less 
beyond  the  common.  PVederick  went  on  to  complete 
his  Code  of  Laws  ;  Gregory,  aided  by  Raymund  of 
Pennafort,  the  Dominican,  gathered  up  into  his 
Decretals  whatever  was  extant,  or  gave  itself  out  as 
such, of  his  predecessors'  enactments  from  the  first  ages. 
Yet  legislation,  however  sound,  which  did  not  seek 
approval  of  the  Holy  See,  was  looked  upon  with 
distrust.  This  new  and  growing  conception  of  a 
purely  secular    Code  pointed    back    to   heathen,  not 


HIS   FOUR   SONS 


343 


Christian  Rome,  and  forward  to  a  condition  of  things 
when  the  Pope  would  be  no  more  the  supreme  law- 
giver. A  fresh  struggle  on  this  larger  battlefield  was 
at  hand. 

Like    Solomon    or    Mohammed,    the    Sicilian   had 


many  wives  and  concubines. 


We  must  distinguish 


Cl.OISTKRS   OI-    THE   CHURCH    OK    MOXREAI.E. 


four  sons  of  his, — Henry  the  eldest,  now  ruling 
Germany ;  Enzio,  the  golden-haired  offspring  of 
Bianca  Lancia,  and  his  brother  Manfred,  who  dis- 
played all  the  genius  of  the  Hohenstauffen  ;  lastly, 
Conrad,  son  of  lolanthe  and  heir  to  Jerusalem.  Of 
these  Henry,  now  grown  up  to  manhood,  was  frac- 
tious and   feeble  ;  his  Teutonic  counsellors   tempted 


344  FATE    OF  FREDERICK  If. 

him  into  rebellion  against  a  distant  power ;  and  in 
May,  1235,  Frederick,  as  in  olden  days,  crossed  the 
Alps  to  sav'e  the  Empire.  It  is  certain  that  Gregory 
did  not  encourage  the  foolish  youth.  Henry  was 
soon  made  to  submit;  he  was  banished  to  Naples  and 
died  a  prisoner. 

But  these  troubles  had  involved  the  Lombard 
League  ;  moreover,  the  popular  party  in  Rome,  never 
quite  extinguished,  was  secretly  Imperial  ;  in  1234 
Savelli  the  Senator  had  pulled  down  some  of  the 
Lateran,  defied  Cardinal  Ranieri,  taken  tribute  and 
allegiance  from  Tuscan  towns.  The  everlasting 
quarrel  between  camp  and  sacristy  was  on  foot  again. 
Frederick,  called  in  to  mediate,  restored  peace.  He 
was  now  getting  ready  to  break  the  Lombards  on  the 
singular  plea,  which  Gregory  himself  had  put  forward, 
that  they  dealt  too  easily  with  heretics,  compounding 
for  their  offences  and  giving  back  their  fines.  Heretics, 
in  these  Northern  parts,  were  not  only  weavers  or 
small  tradesmen  but  well-to-do  merchants  ;  the 
middle  class,  when  not  under  guidance  of  Franciscan 
Saints,  often  fell  away  from  Church  and  clergy. 
Thus  the  Pope  found  his  chief  allies  discredited, 
himself  in  danger.  He  proposed  arbitration.  Before 
it  could  be  done,  Frederick  had  taken  Verona,  stormed 
Vicenza,  beaten  the  Duke  of  Austria  to  his  knees. 
On  November  27,  1237,  he  won  the  fight  of  Corte 
Nuova,  in  which  the  Lombard  legions  were  ruthlessly 
slaughtered  ;  the  Caroccioof  Milan  fell  into  his  hands ; 
young  Tiepolo,  the  Podesta,  son  of  the  Venetian 
Doge,  was  bound  a  prisoner  to  its  chariot  wheels. 
From  Cremona  he  published  an  Imperial  Encyclical, 


SECOND    EXCOMMUNICATION  345 

vying  in  strength  of  language  and  pride  of  power 
with  those  of  the  Roman  Chancery.  The  Caroccio 
he  sent  to  the  Capitol  ;  Tiepolo  was  put  to  death 
at  Naples.  Who  could  withstand  Frederick  now  ? 
Surely,  this  world  was  made  for  Caesar. 

Gregory  rose  to  the  occasion,  not  as  Pope — for  how 
did  Frederick  impeach  his  spiritual  prerogatives  ? —  Jk*^ 

but  as  an  Italian  patriot.     He  leagued  together  Venice,  qW^    ^^^ 
Lombardy,  Romagna,  Genoa  ;  bound  in  one  all  the  ^'^^C^ 
charges  to  which  forty  years'  perplexed  litigation  had  ^^t>^ 
made  the  Emperor  amenable  ;  and  especially  urged 
that  he  had  fomented  rebellion  in  Rome  ;  had  usurped 
Sardinia,  which  was  an  estate  of  the  Holy  See  ;  had 
cherished    Saracens  ;  had  hindered    the    recovery  of 
Palestine  ;  and  had  oppressed  the  clergy.     On  these    • 
grounds   Pope   Gregory,  in  the   Palm   Sunday  Mass 
of  1239,  excommunicated»_Jnle''dir.ted,  ^and_  deposed 
PVederick    H.,    and    delivered    him    bodily   over    to 
Satan  for  the  saving  of  his   soul. 

Pietro  della  Vigna  harangued  against  the  sentence 
at  Padua  ;  his  master  condescended  to  justify  himself 
in  an  assembly  of  Bishops  ;  again  he  appealed  to  his 
fellow  i^rincesKand  he  called  on  the  Romans  to  avenge 
his  insulted  honour.  "  Fierce,  indecent  invectives," 
as  Matthew  Paris  terms  the  Pope's  rejoinders,  were 
bandied  to  and  fro.  The  Barons  of  England  refused 
every  contribution  towards  this  fresh  Crusade  ;  the 
clergy  did  in  like  manner.  Then  Gregory  took  a  fatal 
step.  He  offered  the  Empire,  now  considered  vacant, 
to  Robert  of  Artois.  France  was  to  take  the  place  of 
apostate  Germany.  But  on  the  French  throne  sat 
Louis  IX.,  whom  all  Christians  looked  upon  as  an  angel 


34^  FATE    OF  FREDERICK   II. 

of  God  ;  and  he  not  only  forbade  Robert  to  seize  the 
tempting  bauble,  but  addressed  a  severe  remonstrance 
to  the  Pope,  while  his  nobles  sent  Frederick  an 
embassy  which  touched  him  even  to  tears.  Among 
Germans  the  cry  went  that  if  Gregory  had  not  helped 
Milanese  rebels,  peace  would  never  have  been  broken. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  only  sure  partisans  of  the  Pope 
were  Lombards  in  Italy  and  the  friars  everywhere.  He 
had  canonised  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic — to  whom 
indeed  St.  Louis  cherished  an  equal  devotion.  But 
even  the  friars  were  rent  by  factions — Moderates  for 
the  Holy  See,  Spirituals  for  the  Paternal  Gospel. 
P^lias,  their  crafty,  versatile  General,  joined  the 
Emperor  and  fell  under  the  same  excommunica- 
tion. We  have  come  to  the  middle  years  of  that 
thirteenth  century  in  which  Catholicism  brought  forth 
its  most  mystic  saints,  built  its  unrivalled  sanctuaries, 
squared  the  stones  of  its  Canon  Law,  soared  into 
Pleaven  on  the  wings  of  its  transcendent  philosophy, 
— yet  heretics  are  in  every  land,  dissensions  rife  between 
universities  and  religious  Orders,  the  friars  themselves 
persecuting  and  persecuted  ;  the  Emperor  is  an  out- 
law, the  Pope  menaced  in  his  own  house  ;  the  clergy 
burdened,  the  nations  restless  ;  and  from  the  P"ar 
East  is  heard  the  tramp  of  innumerable  barbarians, 
for  in  1 241  the  Mongols  pour  down  on  Europe, 
advancing  to  the  Danube  and  the  Alps.  We  can 
neither  conceive  nor  imagine  such  a  time  ;  therefore 
we  shall  do  well  to  refrain  from  judging  it.  But 
surely  Pope  and  Emperor  must  have  been  alike 
unhappy. 

Milan    burnt    her   heretics ;     Enzio,    the   beautiful 


MONGOL   ADVANCE   AND   RETREAT  ^47 

youth,  began  to  conquer  his  father's  enemies  ; 
Frederick  swept  towards  Rome.  He  showed  no  mercy 
to  the  so-called  crusaders  ;  but  it  was  a  confused 
indecisive  war.  Enzio,  at  Meloria,  broke  the  Genoese 
fleet  and  took  many  Bishops,  with  all  the  treasure 
which  Cardinal  Otho  was  bringing  from  England. 
The  hordes  of  Genghis  Khan  moved  forward.  The 
Pope  was  in  Sant'  Angelo,  undaunted  but  nearly 
alone.  He  meant  to  call  a  General  Council ;  Frederick 
and  St.  Louis  would  have  welcomed  it  Under  this 
awful  cloud,  charged  with  red  lightning,  Gregory 
died  (August  21,  1241).  x'\ll  his  efforts  had  come 
to  an  untimely  end  ;  but  his  courage  was  never  less 
than  his  convictions  ;  and  he  stands  forth,  a  com- 
manding figure,  in  the  Papal  dynasty. 

It  is  to  the  everlasting  "honour  of  Frederick  that, 
while  chaos  ruled,  his  sons,  Enzio  and  Conrad,  rein- 
forced from  Italy,  drove  back  the  Mongol  hordes  on 
the  Delphos  and  saved  Europe.  Acting  almost  as 
Regent  of  the  Church,  he  suspended  his  armaments, 
allowed  the  Conclav-e  to  meet,  and  would  have  made 
peace  with  Ccelestine  IV.,  had  not  the  newly-elected 
passed  away  immediately.  P"or  two  years  the  small 
body  of  Cardinals  wrangled  over  a  successor.  St. 
Louis  threatened  to  appoint  one  ;  Frederick  insisted  ; 
they  chose  Sinibaldo  Fieschi,  a  Genoese,  and  the 
policy  of  Gregory  IX.  was  resumed.  To  speak  of 
Innocent  IV.  with  respect  for  his  person  would  be 
in  defiance  of  the  multiplied  proofs  which  exhibit 
him  as  grasping,  cold-hearted,  insincere,  and  a 
nepotist.  He  has  been  held  up,  not  for  reverence, 
to  posterity  in  the  terrible  but  unquestioned  indict- 


348  FATE    OF  FRFDRRICK   II. 

ment  which  Robert  Grossetete,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
delivered  to  his  Court  and  Cardinals.  But  where 
the  headlong  Gregory  failed,  Innocent  succeeded. 
Hitherto,  he  had  affected  kindness  towards  the 
Emperor ;  but,  as  Frederick  observed,  "  No  Pope 
can  be  a  Ghibelline,"  and  so  the  event  proved. 
Innocent,  however,  began  by  proposing  terms.  A 
treaty,  thanks  to  Adelaise  of  Sardinia,  was  drawn  in 
1244,  but  never  executed.  Next  year  the  Pontiff 
escaped  by  sea  to  Genoa  where  he  was  welcomed 
"  with  loud  applause  and  aves  vehement  "  ;  he  took  up 
his  quarters  in  the  Iniperial  free  city  of  Lyons  ;  and 
called  a  General  Council  in  1245, 

St.  Louis,  throughout,  was  calm  and  neutral ; 
Arragon  was  hostile ;  the  English  people  murmured 
against  Martin  the  collector  and  all  collectors ; 
barons,  bishops,  middle  class  felt  no  tenderness  for 
the  Pope ;  but  though  historians  like  Matthew  Paris 
are  themselves  evidence  of  widespread  discontent, 
the  great  system  stood  foursquare  against  revolution, 
stained  as  it  was  with  age-long  scandals.  At  Lyons 
the  140  Bishops  and  numerous  abbots  were  protected 
by  a  vile  freebooter,  Philip  of  Savoy,  who  was  named 
Archbishop  of  that  See  but  never  took  orders,  and 
who  died  a  Duke  and  a  married  man,  ancestor  of  the 
present  King  of  Italy.  Thaddeus  of  Suessa,  that 
politic  civilian,  appeared  on  Frederick's  behalf;  he 
charged  Innocent  with  double-dealing  and  appealed 
to  a  future  Council.  But  the  prelates  sided  with  the 
Pope.  Innocent,  by  the  power  of  the  Keys,  deposed 
the  Emperor  in  a  vehement  speech  ;  reserved  Naples 
to  himself;  declared  the  Empire  a  feud  ;  and  by  and 
by  gave  it  to  Henry  Raspe,  "  the  priests'  king." 


350  FATE    OF  FREDERICK   IL 

There  was  civil  war  in  Germany.  St.  Louis  tried 
in  vain  to  soften  Innocent.  Plots  and  counterplots  ; 
frightful  cruelties,  of  which  Frederick  can  never  be 
absolved  ;  Henry  Raspe's  defeat  at  Ulm,  death  at 
the  Wartburg  ;  triumph  of  the  Guelfs  at  Parma  ;  and 
Thaddeus  of  Suessa  captured  and  hacked  in  pieces, 
— such  are  the  gloomy  incidents  of  those  miserable 
days,  down  to  1249.  The  Empire  was  collapsing  to 
anarchy.  Frederick,  not  old  but  worn  and  savage, 
felt  the  blows  of  outrageous  fortune  and  struck 
fiercely  again.  His  beloved  Enzio  was  taken  at 
Bologna,  spending  in  captivity  the  twenty-three  years 
that  remained  of  a  tragic  story.  His  bosom  friend, 
Pietro  della  Vigna,  turned  traitor — why  or  under  what 
provocation  has  never  been  known  ;  he  "  held  the 
keys  of  Frederick's  heart,"  said  Dante,  and  now  he 
became  false  and  being  taken  in  the  manner  dashed 
out  his  brains  against  his  prison  walls.  Guelfs, 
Ghibellines,  Free  Companies,  laid  Italy  waste.  It  was 
time  the  Alcibiades  of  the  century  left  it  to  work  out 
its  own  confusions.  In  1250,  at  P'erentino,  not  far 
from  Lucera,  the  P2mperor  breathed  his  last  in 
Manfred's  arms.  He  sleeps  with  his  royal  robes 
about  him,  in  the  Cathedral  at  Palermo.  But  we 
cannot  look  upon  the  great  porphyry  urn,  which 
holds  all  that  is  left  of  Frederick  II.,  without  feeling 
that  he  was  truly  a  spirit  misunderstood,  never  wisely 
handled,  full  of  mysterious  charm  and  powers  wasted, 
the  most  captivating,  enigmatic,  and  unhappy  of 
"Chri'stiah  Emperorsr  *"--" 


XXII 


CONRADIN    DIES — THE   SICILIAN    VESPERS 


( 1 250-1 299) 


Q 


With  Frederick  expired  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
William  of  Holland,  the  anti-Emperor  raised  up  by 
Innocent,  a  lad  of  twenty,  held  on  till  1256,  then 
perished  fighting  with  the  Frisians.  An  interregnum 
of  seventeen  years  followed  ;  but,  if  we  look  at  realities 
and  pierce  through  the  forms  of  things,  the  new  dynasty 
inaugurated  by  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  poor,  proud, 
and  pious,  in  1273,  took  over  little  but  an  empty  name 
and  was  merely  German,  never  Roman.  There  will 
be  in  time  a  crimson-clad  Sigismund  at  Constance  ; 
a  lord  of  many  lands,  Charles  V. ;  but  even  these  do 
not  fulfil  the  idea  which  was  dreamt  of  by  Charle- 
magne or  Frederick  ;  and  the  rest  are  shadows. 

innocent  IV.  had  yet  to  deal  with  the  remnant  of 
Hohenstauffen.  He  excommunicated  the  able  though 
somewhat  stern  Conrad,  who  should  have  succeeded 
his  father,  but  was  now  charged  with  heresy  and 
made    the    object    of   a    crusade.     From    Lyons    the 

351 


— -^ 


P 


r 


352  CON  R  A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

Pope  went  down  to  Italy  in  triumph,  everywhere 
rooting  out  GhibeHines  and  Nonconformists ;  at 
Perugia  he  stayed  a  year  and  a  half.  Manfred,  who 
kept  a  grip  on  the  South,  found  rebellion  springing 
up  at  the  Pope's  instigation,  and  it  is  curious  to  note 
the  Count  of  Aquino,  brother  of  the  great  St.  Thomas, 
among  its  leaders.  Capua,  Naples,  fell  away  from 
the  Imperial  party,  when  Conrad,  crossing  the  Alps 
and  sailing  from  Venice,  arrived  at  Siponto,  chastised 
the  revolting  cities  with  storm  and  slaughter,  and 
restored  the  balance.  Factions  broke  out  among  the 
Pope's  own  partisans.  He  turned  to  the  feeble 
though  exquisite  Henry  III.  of  England,  made  his 
second  son,  Edmund,  King  of  Sicily,  and  swept  into 
his  coffers  an  infinite  tribute.  This  became  the  cause 
of  civil  war  between  Henry  and  his  people,  out  of 
which  rose  Simon  de  Montfort,  who  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  free  English  Parliament,  So  wide-reaching 
were  the  effects  of  that  quarrel  between  Papacy  and 
Empire !  But  Edmund  did  not  get  his  Kingdom  of 
Sicily ;  as  we  shall  see,  it  was  the  golden  hook  where- 
with to  catch  princes  ;  for  Innocent  never  scrupled 
at  breaking  his  pledge.  He  sold  bishoprics  as  he 
trafficked  in  crowns,  always  to  fill  his  own  purse  or 
to  dower  his  kinsfolk,  for  he  practised  nepotism  on  a 
lordly  scale.  As  Pope  he  had  built,  in  the  energetic 
words  of  Robert  Grossetete,  for  hell-fire  ;  as  a  ruler 
of  this  world  he  showed  himself  crafty  and  invincible. 
He  foreshadows  at  once  Innocent  VIII.  and  Julius  II., 
neither  of  whom  do  we  reckon  in  the  list  of  edifying 
Pontiffs. 

Rome,  the   city,  has    fallen    into   the   background 


MANFRED  353 

during  these  tempests  of  "  blood  and  flame,  rage  and 
despair."  It  now  possessed  a  Senator,  Brancaleone, 
called  in  from  Bologna  to  appease  its  everlasting 
tumults.  He  hanged  culprits,  established  quiet  for 
a  while,  and  sent  the  Pope  a  peremptory  message  to 
return  to  his  long-abandoned  See.  Innocent  appeared, 
withdrew,  was  compelled  a  second  time  to  come 
back.  We  may  conjecture  that  his  pleasant  hours 
in  the  free  city  of  Lyons  had  given  him  a  foretaste 
of  Avignon  ;  but  with  his  antique  Senator  and  a 
murmuring  people  he  did  not  dare  to  trifle.  From 
the  Lateran  he  continued  to  make  war  upon  the 
children  of  Frederick.  Conrad  was  too  strong  for 
him  ;  accused,  as  we  said,  of  heretical  sentiments — an 
unlikely  charge — he  defended  himself  in  the  Papal 
Court.  His  juvenile  brother  Henry  died  on  a  visit 
to  him  at  Naples :  Innocent  gave  out  that  the  lad 
was  poisoned.  In  1254  Conrad,  by  some  mysterious 
stroke,  lay  on  his  death-bed  ;  rumour  babbled  of  the 
wise  Manfred's  guilt,  but  he  would  not  even  accept 
the  Regency. 

One  legitimate  descendant  of  Frederick  II. 
was  left,  Conradin,  a  boy  of  three  years,  on  whose 
behalf  Berthold  of  Homburg  wrote  in  suppliant 
terms  to  Pope  Innocent.  The  answer  was  that 
Conradin  should  be  King  of  Jerusalem — a  kingdom 
in  the  air — but  by  no  means  of  Naples.  William, 
Cardinal  of  Sant'  Eustachio,  Innocent's  nephew,  was 
to  be  Regent,  to  seize,  confiscate,  interdict,  levy  taxes, 
and  govern  the  South  as  a  Roman  province.  To 
this  Manfred's  reply  was  the  assumption  of  sovereign 
power  in  the  name  of  Conradin.     But,  in  the  midst 

24 


354  COyjRADIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

of  treachery  on  all  sides,  he  submitted  ostensibly  to 
the  Pope  and  invited  him  to  enter  the  kingdom. 
Innocent  came  to  Ceperano  with  a  splendid  retinue  ; 
Manfred  fell  at  his  feet,  was  raised  up  and  appointed 
Papal  Vicar.  Still  more  gloriously  did  the  Pontiff 
triumph  in  the  city  of  Naples  ;  his  nephew  took  the 
homages  absolutely  in  his  name.  Then  Manfred 
escaped  to  Lucera  ;  beat  the  recreant  Marquis  of 
Homburg  and  the  Pope's  squadrons  at  Foggia ;  and 
swore  to  maintain  the  rights  of  King  Conradin.  The 
game  was  now  to  be  simplified  ;  its  last  pieces  were 
on  the  board.  Innocent,  from  his  palace  at  Naples, 
utterly  disregarding  English  Edmund,  offered  Sicily 
to  Charles  of  Anjou.  We  may  remember  that 
Gregory  IX.  had  set  the  example  of  tempting  on  this 
expedition  the  younger  Princes  of  France.  Not 
many  days  after,  in  December,  1254,  "he  that  sold 
the  Church  was  dead,"  writes  Matthew  Paris  of  the 
Pope.  Almost  his  last  act  had  been  to  pave  the  way 
for  the  Sicilian  Vespers. 

Alexander  IV.,  of  the  house  of  Segni,  who  suc- 
ceeded without  an  interval,  was  a  good  Pope, 
embarrassed  by  the  rapacious  Curia  which  Innocent 
had  bequeathed  to  him,  and  still  more  by  the 
dainnosa  hcereditas  of  a  suzerainty  over  Naples.  He 
could  not  put  down  Manfred,  in  possession  of  the 
whole  kingdom  ;  he  stumbled  between  Charles  of 
Anjou  and  Edmund  of  England  ;  his  dealings  with 
Boniface,  the  Savoyard  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
a  worldling  and  a  reprobate,  as  with  Sewal,  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  threw  a  lurid  gleam  on  the  least, 
defensible    of    Curial    practices  —  the    intrusion    of 


BRANCALEONR   SENATOR 


355 


foreigners  into  Sees  which  they  administered  like 
proconsuls,  and  the  exaction  of  subsidies  in  aid  of 
wars  which  had  become  purely  secular,  though  dis- 
guised under  the  title  of  crusades.  In  Rome, 
Brancaleone    was     acting    as     temporal     sovereign. 


I'OI'K    i.NNOCKNT    IV.,    A.D.     I254. 


Flung  into  prison  but  delivered  thence,  he  broke  the 
proudest  nobles  ;  pulled  down  their  robber-dens  to 
the  number  of  a  hundred  and  forty ;  stood  out 
against  the  Pope  himself,  who  had  taken  part  with 
the  Patricians  ;  made  alliance  with  Manfred ;  and 
was  Senator  till  his  death. 


356  CON R  A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

The    year     1258    saw    this    highly-gifted    son    of 
Frederick,   hitherto    Regent,    crowned    King    at   the 
request  of  the  Sicilian  Estates  which  he  alone  could 
protect.     He  had  no  lawful  sons  ;  and  he  promised 
that  Conradin,  now  Duke  of  Suabia,  should  succeed 
him.     The  interminable  war  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibel- 
lines  went   on.     Florence  had  banished   its  "  white  " 
or    Imperial    citizens ;    they    united    with    Pisa   and 
Siena,   overthrew  the  Guelfs  at  Monte  Aperto,  and 
would  have  razed  their  native  city  to  the  ground,  had 
not  Farinata  persuaded  them  to  spare  it.     Michelet, 
the  French  historian,  considers  that  the  Guelfs  were, 
on    principle,   democratic    and  jie^^olutionary ;    they 
drove  out   their  feudal  masters  ;   levelled   the   ranks 
of  their  fellow  townsmen  to  one  class  which  we  should 
now   call    industrial    or   artisan  ;    were    loyal  to  the 
Church  as  long  as  the  Church  was   loyal   to  them  ; 
and,  like   other  Jacobins,  while  jealous    of   superior 
men,  fell  under   military  sway,  the  victims   of  hired 
cut-throats.     But  they  never  ceased    to  be  genuine 
Italian    patriots ;     thus   we    comprehend    why    they 
looked  on   the  Pope  as   their   anointed   chief. 
^     Of  the  Ghibellines  it  may  be  said  that  in   origin 
they  were  feudal  lords  who  would  not.,j^inquish  the 
fierce  rights  they  had  so    long  enjoyedj   They   fell 
back,    when    assailed,    on    the    Emperor  ;    but    they 
relished  his  impartial  centralising  law  as  little  as  they 
welcomed    the    people's    uprising.       The   old    Greek 
tyrant  in  a  small  city  like  Corinth  or  Athens,  on  his 
guard    night   and    day   against   assassination,    might 
seem  to  live  once  more  in  the  portentous  Ezzelino  or 
the  subtle  Visconti.     Every  vice,  every  horror,  that 


358  CONRADIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

legend  ascribes  to  the  Greek  was  renewed  in  the 
ItaHan  despots.  But  the  age  did  not  condemn  their 
crimes  so  loudly  as  it  admired  their  good  fortune. 
True,  they  often  came  to  a  bad  end.  Ezzelino  him- 
self, whose  father  had  been  a  monstrous  compound 
of  sins  and  superstitions,  ruled  Padua  with  a  rod  of 
iron  ;  yet  was  he  regretted  when  his  Ghibelline 
confederates,  finding  he  meant  to  betray  them, 
turned  round,  wounded  and  imprisoned  him.  The 
half-crazy  tyrant  tore  away  his  bandages  and  died 
blaspheming.  Such  were  the  miscreants  with  whom 
Manfred,  gay,  subtle,  jcoura^^eous,  but  certainly  not 
much  of  a  Christian,  had  to  make  alliance.  He  won 
over  Venice  and  Genoa;  when  Alexander  IV.  died 
at  Viterbo  in  1261  the  Papacy  had  no  friend  except 
St.  Louis  ;  and  its  always  precarious  dominion  over 
Rome  was  hardly  even  a  name.  Eight  Cardinals 
were  left  of  the  Sacred  College.^^  I'Wey  chose  a 
P^renchman,  born  at  Troyes,  son  of  a  shoemaker,  and 
raised  by  his  own  merits  to  be  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem. 
It  was  a  hundred  and  forty  years  since  the  last 
French  Pope,  Calixtus  II.,  had  mounted  St.  Peter's 
Chair.  Pantaleon  called  himself  Urban  IV.  He 
proceeded  at  once  to  name  fourteen  Cardinals,  of 
whom  seven  were  French.  And  he  offered  the 
crown  of  Naples  to  St.  Louis. 

Certainly  the  spectacle  is  an  imposing  one  ;  this 
cobbler's  son,  meanest  of  his  subjects  by  birth,  makes 
a  present  to  the  Most  Christian  King  of  Southern 
Italy ;  he  holds  the  balance  between  Richard  of 
Cornwall  and  Alfonso  of  Castile,  candidates  for  the 
Empire  ;  and  he  successfully  withstands  the  Ghibel- 


360  CONRADIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

lines  at  large,  who  were  pressing  Conradin's  claims. 
But  he  could  not  cope  with  Manfred.  The  Italian 
cities  had  lost  or  overturned  their  Guelf  administra- 
tion. St.  Louis  argued  that  if  Conradin  were  not 
heir  of  Sicily,  Edmund  was ;  and  the  King  of 
Arragon  took  a  decisive  step,  hotly  condemned  from 
Rome,  when  he  allowed  his  son  to  marry  the  daughter 
of  Manfred.  This  alliance  was  fated,  in  the  end,  to 
bring  with  it  the  Sicilian  dowry  ;  for  the  moment  it 
exasperated  Urban,  who  procured  Edmund's  renun- 
ciation and  bestowed  the  title,  with  all  it  implied,  on 
Charles  of  Anjou.  The  Romans  made  him  their 
Senator ;  and  the  last,  bloodiest,  and  most  hateful 
chapter  in  this  deplorable  conflict  began. 

Personally,  the  combatants  were  not  ill-matched. 
Manfred,  whom  his  rival  termed  the  "  Sultan  of 
Nocera,"  had  inherited  his  mother's  fair  face,  his 
father's  versatile  and  dangerous  charm  ;  adored, 
detested,  a  knight-errant  with  his  Saracen  Mame- 
lukes about  him,  no  friend  to  priests,  he  calls  up 
an  image  of  Napoleon  by  this  mixture  of  logic, 
violence,  and  adventurous  fancy  which,  for  a  time, 
no  power  could  resist.  Charles  of  Anjou,  Count 
of  Provence,  in  his  wife's  name,  had  nothing  of 
the  gay  troubadour  ;  this  tall,  thin  man,  with  the 
olive  complexion  and  eagle  countenance,  never 
laughed,  spoke  little,  hardly  slept.  Regular  as  a 
monk,  says  Villani,  who  gives  us  his  picture,  Charles 
(professed  to  be  a  zealous  Catliolic ;  he  took  no 
pleasure  in  mimes  or  courtly  feastings ;  he  was 
/prodigal  of  arms  to  his  followers  ;  but  was  himself 
\greedy  after  lands,  lordships,  and  money.     His  high. 


CHARLES   OF  ANJOU  36 1 

severe  thoughts  made  him,  as  years  went  on,  dread- 
fully cruel.  But  where,  except  in  the  heart  of  St. 
Louis,  shall  we  look  for  mercy  during  that  wild  age  ? 
Manfred  was  cruel  too  ;  yet  history,  when  it  speaks 
of  Charles,  never  has  a  kind  word  for  him,  and  on 
the  tomb  of  the  Sicilian  hero  the  tears  of  generations 
have  fallen.  Friendship  was  the  jewel  of  these 
Hohenstauffen  Kings. 


We  pass  over  the  troubles  of  England  in  which 
Urban  played  no  successful  part.  Scarcely  had  he 
called  to  the  Angevin  when  he  died  on  the  way  to 
Orvieto  (1265),  and  an  anxious  interregnum  of  five 
months  ensued.  Hugo  Falcodi  was  Legate  at 
Boulogne — for  he  dared  not  cross  the  Channel  to 
daunt  with  anathemas  the  English  barons.  A 
Southern  Frank,  from  the  Rhone,  Archdeacon  of 
Narbonne,  Cardinal  of  Santa  Sabina,  in  early  days 
wedded,  he  was  that  formidable  character,  a 
Churchman  who  is  likewise  a  man  of  the  world. 
His  French  colleagues  elected  him.  Clement  IV.  at 
once  made  his  way  over  the  Alps  to  Perugia  ;  he 
proclaimed  a  Crusade,  pledged  the  Roman  basilicas, 
excepting  St.  Peter's  and  the  Lateran,  and  to  raise 
supplies,  sent  out  his  begging  Friars  with  ample 
authority,  who  stirred  revolt  on  the  borders  of  Naples. 

Meanwhile,  Charles  of  Anjou,  having  gained  his 
terms,  embarked  at  Marseilles  with  a  {^\n  galleys, 
reached  the  Tiber,  was  in  Rome  at  Whitsuntide, 
1265,  and — evil  omen! — took  up  his  quarters  in  the 
Lateran.  He  meant.  Pope  or  no  Pope,  to  be  master. 
As  summer  ended,  the  French  army  passed  Mont 
Cenis  ;  most  of  the  great  families  sent  sons  or  repre- 


362 


CON  RAD  IN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 


sentatives  ;  the  Crusade  was  fed  with  French  money  ; 
and  these  thirty  thousand  invaders  joined  Charles 
under  the  crumbling  walls  of  Rome.  The  Pope  saw 
them  go  by  ;  he  did  not  join  them.  At  once  Anjou 
drove  forward  to  Ceperano.  Manfred  drew  out  his 
motley  forces  in  front  of  Benevento  (February  6, 
1 266).     The    shock    was    fierce ;     French,    Germans, 


THK    ARCHHISHOI'  S    I'Al.ACE,    VITERBO. 


Saracens,  Guelfs  of  Florence,  fought  with  desperate 
rage.  But  never.- have. -Ltaliai-i^  resisted.±he  ...GaJik 
nntqpi^'virtnriniislY,  Manfred  lost  the  battle.  He 
fell  by  an  unknown  hand.  His  body  was  recog- 
nized, set  on  an  ass,  and  brought  to  Charles.  It 
was  buried  under  a  great  cairn,  for  in  holy  ground 
it  must  not  lie  ;  then  torn   up  again,  and  cast  out 


MARCH  OF  CONRADIN  363 

of  the  Kingdom,  as  Dante  sings  with  severe  pathos, 
to  repose  by  the  stream  called  Verde.  The  French 
sacked  Benevento.  Apulia,  Calabria,  and  even  Sicily 
submitted.  Clement  invested  Charles  with  the 
conquered  South.  Plorence  took  back  her  Guelfs  ; 
Pisa  was  humbled  ;  Milan  was  treated  despitefully. 
From  that  day  to  this  Italians  have  feared  and  halfid/ 
the  French  dominion.  Clement  might  tax  distant 
nations,  excommunicate  Simon  de  Montfort,  and  set 
his  Legate  above  the  King  of  England  ;  at  home  he 
was  the  humble  servant  of  Charles,  who  held  all  Italy 
in  his  grasp  and  "  made  horrible  exactions  under  the 
Royal  Seal,"  as  the  Pope,  not  without  indignation, 
writes  to  him. 

Two  years  were  enough  to  provoke  the  counter- 
revolution. P>ederick  Lancia  made  his  way  to 
Germany  and  persuaded  Conradin,  the  boy  not  yet 
sixteen,  to  assert  his  rights,  cross  the  Alps,  and  march 
on  Rome.  With  four  thousand  troops  and  his  insepar- 
able friend,  young  P>ederick  of  Austria,  the  last 
Hohenstauffen  came  to  Verona.  Clement  at  Viterbo 
launched  his  thunder  at  this  serpent  sprung  from  a 
poisonous  brood.  He  appointed  Charles,  "  peace- 
maker "  in  Tuscany  and  throughout  the  Empire. 
But  Sicily  was  in  revolt.  Another  Lancia  had  seized 
the  Lateran  ;  his  ally,  Henry  of  Castile,  occupied  St. 
Peter's.  Down  rushed  Conradin,  while  Charles 
lingered  about  Florence  ;  when  he  went  to  besiege 
Lucera  the  bold  lad  and  young  Frederick  rode  in 
sight  of  Clement,  under  the  Viterbo  battlements  ; 
"  victims  to  the  slaughter,"  said  he,  looking  down  on 
them    with   a    kind    of   melancholy,   which    did    not 


364  CONRADIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

hinder  his  subsequent  acts.  Rome  opened  its  gates 
with  joy  to  the  Suabian,  whom  it  soon  expected  to 
crown  Emperor.  Some  churches  were  plundered. 
The  small  army  marched  on  behind  Sabine  peaks  to 
fatal  Tagliacozzo.  There,  a  first  success  ended  in 
utter  ruin,  August  26.  1268.  Conradin  and  Frederick 
were  taken,  sold  by  the  Frangipani  to  the  Angevin  ; 
their  followers  dis])ersed.  Charles  had  now  his 
desire  ;  the  two  Lancias  were  caught — all  the  hopes 
of  Hohenstauffen  might  be  struck  dead  at  a  blow. 
But  even  he  could  not  murder  his  prisoners.  By 
an  extraordinary  device,  to  be  long  argued  over, 
execrated,  wondered  at,  he  brought  them  to  a  mock 
trial  in  Naples.  They  were  condemned  as  rebels  to 
their  liege  lord.  Germany  has  never  forgotten,  pity 
will  always  tell  with  shuddering,  how  Conradin  knelt 
on  the  scaffold  in  presence  of  a  numberless  throng, 
cast  his  glove  among  them  defiantly,  cried,  "  O  my 
mother,  what  news  will  they  bring  thee  this  day !  " 
and  on  that  word  was  smitten  by  the  headsman.  His 
comrade,  Frederick,  died  in  like  manner  ;  then  the 
Lancias  ;  then  two  Pisan  nobles  who- had  cleaved  to 
his  cause.  "  Life  of  Conradin,  death  of  Charles,"  the 
Pope  was  fabled  to  have  written  ;  all  we  know  is 
that  he  did  not  stay  the  fall  of  the  axe.  We  think 
with  gladness  that  Anjou  was  never  to  hold  Sicily 
fast;  that  if  the  Hohenstauffen  were  gone,  the  seed 
of  Manfred  should  yet  enjoy  his  kingdom.  Therei^ 
a  logic  in  events  which  the  wise  call  Providence  ;  it 
cannot  be  mistaken  even  in  so  dark  a  tragedy,  r — ^ 
Young  Conradin  was  beheaded  on  October  29, 
1268.    Within  a  month,  on  November  29,  Clement  IV. 


GREGORY  X.    AT  LYOXS  365 

died.     Charles  of  Anjou,   irresistible,  kept — or   per- 
mitted his  French  Cardinals  to  keep — the  Holy  See 
vacant  forjtwcr years.     At  length,  on  March  22,  1272,   ^  O///^ 
a  Visconti,  Archdeacon   of  Liege,  then  away  in  the  ' 

Holy  Land,  was  chosen.    He  is  known  as  Gregory  X. 

This  admirable  man  united  the  simplicity  of  a 
saint  with  the  wisdom  of  a  lawgiver.  His  journey 
from  BrindKi  to  Rome  was  a  peaceful  triumph.  He 
made  a  treaty  between  Venice  and  Genoa,  hoping 
they  might  combine  in  a  naval  expedition  to  the 
East.  At  Florence  he  attempted  the  impossible,  to 
persuade  the  Guelfs  and  Ghibellincs  that  they  should 
dwell  together  in  unity.  He  ordered  a  new  election 
to  the  Empire,  which  would  henceforth  be  Teutonic, 
for  all  its  short  or  sudden  irruptions  into  Italy;  he 
confirmed  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  when  chosen.  He 
had  seen  the  Latin  usurpation  at  Constantinople  end 
in  1261  ;  nay,  though  he  knew  it  not,  he  had  taken 
part  in  the  last  of  the  Crusades.  Instinct  and  policy 
bade  him  recognise  Michael  Paleologus,  whose  name 
and  succession  were  to  continue  until  Mohammed  II. 
should  desecrate  Sancta  Sophia  into  a  mosque. 
Gregory,  advancing  north  as  he  fulfilled  these  deeds 
of  reconciliation,  opened  the  great  Council  of  Lyons 
in  1274. 

Round  about  him  sat  five  hundred  Bishops,  seventy 
Abbots,  a  thousand  of  the  clergy.  The  King  of 
Arragon  was  there  ;  all  the  West  had  sent  repre- 
.sentatives ;  in  June  the  Greek  ambassadors  came. 
No  anathema  was  pronounced  ;  the  Churches  of  East 
and  West  uttered  a  common  creed,  acknowledged  one 
Pope,  and  bowed  to  the  orthodox  Emperors,  Rudolph 


366  CON R  A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

and  Michael.  Gregory  issued  stern  regulations  which 
might  hinder  Conclaves  in  the  future  from  paltering 
with  their  duty.  On  his  way  home,  when  the  Council 
was  happily  concluded,  he  met  the  Hapsburg  Emperor 
at  Lausanne  and  dedicated  that  august  and  now  deso- 
late cathedral.  But  he  never  reached  the  Eternal 
City.  At  Arezzo,  January  1276,  he  expired.  The 
ancient  strife  began  again,  though  under  circum- 
stances which  were  substituting  French  for  German 
actors,  and  reversing  the  part  of  the  King  and 
the  Pontiff. 

In  three  years  three  Popes  ;  Innocent  V.  lasted  till 
June,  1276;  Hadrian  V.,  a  Genoese,  not  ordained, 
suspended  the  imperative  rules  made  by  Gregory  for 
election  to  St.  Peter's  Chair,  and  died  in  August  ; 
John  XXL,  chosen  amid  tumults,  was  killed  in  May, 
1 277,  by  the  falling  in  of  his  palace-roof  Nicholas  III., 
an  Orsini,  followed.  Pie  built  the  Vatican  ;  got  from 
Rudolph  the  magnificent,  empty  cession,  not  only 
of  all  the  Papal  States,  but  of  the  Italian  Islands  ; 
showed  little  friendship  to  Charles  of  Anjou  ;  enriched 
his  own  nephews  ;  gave  one  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo, 
made  another  his  Vice-Senator  in  Rome  ;  filled  the 
Sacred  College  with  his  kinsfolk  ;  died  at  Soriano, 
which  he  had  confiscated ;  and  for  his  avarice,  nepotism, 
and  Guelfic  pretensions  was  seen  by  Dante  burning 
in  hell.  Yet  he  is  described  as  no  less  irreproachable 
in  character  than  aspiring  and  energetic.  Charles  of 
Anjou  would  not  endure  a  second  like  him.  By  sheer 
compulsion  he  forced  on  the  Conclave,  after  six  months' 
stubborn  fight,  his  nominee,  the  Cardinal  of  Santa 
Cecilia,  formerly  Canon  of  Tours,  a  born  Frenchman 


ANJOU'S    TYRANNY  36/ 

(1281).  Martin  IV.  kept  his  court  in  Orvieto.  He 
had  but  one  principle  of  conduct,  to  register  the 
decrees  which  his  creator  Charles  might  dictate. 

When    this   sour,  truculent  conqueror   had    seized 
Naples,  where  he  exercised  a  grinding  tyranny,  the 
Greek  possessions  of  Manfred  also  fell  to  him.     Sicily, 
once  the  lady  of  kingdoms,  he  trampled  upon  like 
a  slave  ;    his   lieutenants  at    Palermo    kept  a  list  of 
marriageable   heiresses,  whom    he   bestowed    on    his 
Trovengal  adventurers,  and,  though  himself  decorous, 
he  let  this  unbridled  soldiery  insult  the  honour  of  a 
people  as  jealous  and  reserved  as  the  Mohammedans, 
whose  blood  they  often  shared.    We  must  fancy  these 
things  and  worse   going   on    year   after   year,  while 
Pedro   the   Arragonese  watched    his   opportunity  to 
strike,  in  his  wife  Constanza's  name,  for  the  Sicilian 
crown  and  freedom.     Charles  was  effectively  chief  of 
the   House  of  P^rance.      St.   Louis  had    perished   iri\ 
Africa  on  the  foolish  noble  quest  into  which  he  was  / 
betrayed  by  this  designing  brother.     Philip  the  Hardy*^ 
did  not  deserve  his  bold  addition.     But  Anjou  looked 
to  be  lord  of  Italy  despite  the  Hapsburg,  who,  indeed, 
was  never  able  to  hinder  these  distant  thunderclaps. 
More,  he  dreamt  of  an  Empire  on  the   v4igean,  of 
Byzantium  and  the  Golden  Horn.     Paleologus  could 
neither  subdue  his  own  clergy  nor  fulfil  the  promises 
made  to  Gregory  X.  at  Lyons.     He  was  excommuni- 
cated and  would  have  been  left  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  Charles  by  Martin  IV.,  but  his  own  subjects  made 
an  end  of  him  and  renounced  the  Papacy. 

Looking   thus    East  and  West   the   Angevin  was 
caught   between    two   fires.      Arragon   joined    hands 


368  CONRADIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

with  the  Greeks  ;  it  is  even  possible  that  Nicholas  III. 
was  no  stranger  to  plots  or  combinations  which  might 
reduce  an  enemy  who  had  come  as  the  Church's 
deliverer  and  now  held  so  much  more  than  had  been 
granted  him.  This  was  ever  the  risk  of  appealing  to 
the  secular  arm.  Romance,  taking  up  its  parable, 
here  weaves  in  the  travels,  disguises,  hair-breadth 
escapes  of  the  physician,  perhaps  alchemist,  John  of 
Procida,  who  arranges  everything  beforehand  like  a 
stage  conspirator.  The  story  will  always  be  told 
with  a  sigh  or  a  smile  that  it  should  be  too  strange  to 
be  true.  We  will  grant  Procida's  negotiations  ;  it  is 
known  that  Martin  IV.  did  his  utmost  to  bring  the 
Ghibellines  under,  and  he  must  have  felt  the  storm 
advancing  from  Arragon.  But  the  real  stage  villain 
was  Charles,  whose  soldiers  exasperated  to  madness 
a  proud  and  sullen  people.  "  Hate  and  wait,"  says 
the  Corsican  proverb  ;  the  Sicilians  never  ceased  to 
hate,  but  during  fourteen  years  they  waited. 

On  Easter  Tuesday,  1282,  as  the  crowds  were 
pouring  out  of  church  after  Vespers,  a  French  soldier 
named  Drouet  insulted  the  daughter  of  Roger  Mas- 
trangelo.  The  assailant  was  instantly  stabbed  with 
his  own  sword,  snatched  (as  legend  says)  by  the  girl's 
bridegroom.  "  Death  to  the  French  !  "  resounded  on 
all  sides  ;  the  bells  of  San  Giovanni  degli  Fremiti 
rang  out  the  tocsin,  and  two  thousand  strangers  were 
massacred  on  the  spot.  Into  a  common  pit  their 
carcases  were  flung.  Then  King  Roger's  palace 
'WSs'''lnvaded  ;  the  Justiciar  fled  ;  foreign  priests, 
monks,  residents — every  one  that  could  not  frame 
his  mouth  to  pronounce  the  shibboleth  "  Ciceri,"  says 


SAN    GIOVANNI    UEGLI    EKEMITI,    PALERMO — ("SICILIAN    VESI'ERS, 
A.I).    1282). 


25 


370  CON R  A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 

the  legend — fell  under  an  indiscriminate  vengeance. 
It  was  a  day  of  rebuke  and  blasphemy,  when  churches 
and  convents  were  themselves  polluted  with  slaughter, 
as  in  frantic  revolutions  before  and  since.  Mastran- 
gelo,  with  his  friends,  improvised  a  Government  ; 
thirty  miles  off  the  Justiciar  was  caught  and  killed. 
The  Island  rose  in  fury  ;  from  Corleone  to  Messina 
was  nothing  but  murder,  insurrection,  a  medieval 
Feast  of  Pikes.  Heribert  the  Viceroy,  pledged  to 
return  to  Provence,  escaped  into  Calabria.  Whatever 
French  he  left  behind  were  done  to  death  ;  and  by 
the  end  of  April  Sicily  was  free.  But  everywhere 
the  Church's  banner,  the  cross-keys,  floated  on  the 
wind.  With  Rome  the  liberated  cities  sought  no 
quarrel. 

Charles's  prayer,  when  this  Job's  news  was  brought 
him,  is  on  record  :  "  O  God,  if  I  must  fall,  be  it  by 
slow  degrees."  He  sat  gnawing  his  sceptre,  by 
turns  raging  and  silent.  His  French  Pope,  Martin, 
laid  Palermo  under  an  interdict  which  these  san- 
guinary Vespers  had  well  deserved  ;  he  confiscated 
the  property  of  rebels,  from  the  Archbishop  to  the 
meanest  layman,  and  he  uttered  once  more  the 
detestable  word  Crusade.  To  him  the  Sicilians  gave 
reply  by  calling  in  Pedro  of  Arragon,  who  was  making 
war  on  Tunis.  He  came  to  Trapani,  not  far  from 
ancient  Eryx,  with  Roger  Loria,  his  great  admiral, 
most  adventurous  of  medieval  sailors  ;  with  Conrad 
Xancia'and  other  exiles.  He  was  at  once  hailed 
King  of  Sicily.  Meanwhile,  Anjou  with  Cardinal 
Gerard  was  thundering  at  Messina,  vomiting  destruc- 
tion like  yEtna  upon  the  stubborn  town.     His  assault 


ROGER   LORIA  37 1 

was  beaten  back.  Roger  Loria  came  sailing  into  the 
Straits  ;  compelled  him  to  desert  his  tents  ;  took  forty- 
five  galleys  and  six  thousand  prisoners  ;  the  Catalan 
King  and  army  triumphed,  Charles,  a  little  out  of 
his  mind,  challenged  Pedro  to  single  combat  ;  the 
absurd  proposal  was  eluded.  Again  Roger  I.oria 
drew  out  his  fleet  in  array  before  Naples.  The 
Angevin  was  on  the  march,  but  his  son,  Charles  the 
Lame,  went  forth  to  battle,  was  defeated  and  taken. 
"  Would  to  God  he  were  dead  ! "  exclaimed  the  angry 
father.  Had  his  enemies  retaliated  on  the  crippled 
young  man  that  which  Conradin  had  suffered,  who 
would  have  called  it  unjust  ?  They  spared  him,  and 
he  lived  to  be  King  of  Naples. 

But  the  melancholy  Charles  sank  under  his  mis- 
fortunes ;  he  died  at  Foggia,  January  7,  1285.  It 
was  a  year  of  illustrious  deaths.  Pope  Martin,  in 
1283,  had  deposed  Don  Pedro  of  Arragon  ;  the 
Kingdom  he  presented  to  Charles  of  Valois  (yet 
another  Charles  !),  second  son  of  France.  A  Crusade 
once  more  ;  this  time  led  by  Philip  the  Hardy,  with  a 
light-minded,  numerous  host.  Italian  fleets  ravaged 
the  shores  of  Catalonia  ;  Don  Pedro  lost  all  but  a 
few  strong  places.  Then  the  tide  turned.  Roger 
Loria,  pirate  or  freebooter  at  sea,  broke  the  P'rench 
ships,  tortured  the  French  captives  ;  Philip  had  to 
raise  the  siege  of  Gerona,  to  leave  his  dying  soldiers 
in  the  passes  of  the  Pyrenees,  himself  to  die  at 
Perpignan  this  same  year,  October,  1285.  One 
month  later  Don  Pedro  joined  him  in  the  shades. 
Martin  was  gone  already  in  March.  Some  handfuls 
of  white  dust  were  left  of  them  all — Kings,  warriors. 


37-  C ON R A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPEJ^S 

Churchmen.  As  for  Sicily,  never  more  did  it  obey 
its  Papal  overlord.  The  war  of  twenty-one  years, 
which  we  need  not  follow  through  its  twists  and 
turnings,  issued  in  a  compromise  (1299).  Frederick, 
brother  of  Don  Pedro,  was  to  keep  the  Island  for 
life  ;  he  bequeathed  it  to  his  descendants  and  founded 
a  dynasty.  Charles  the  Lame  succeeded  to  the  other 
Sicily,  which  Italians  call  "  II  Regno,"  on  the  main- 
land. Over  Conradin  and  his  slaughtered  friends 
this  Charles  built,  in  the  busiest  p^rt  of  Naples,  the 
Church  of  Mount  Carmel,  even  yet  a  place  of  pilgrim- 
age to  the  hurrying  traveller. 

Honorius  IV.,  who  passed  across  the  stage  one 
moment  on  Martin's  death,  annulled  the  compact 
which  divided  the  two  Sicilies.  But  he  could  not 
hinder  that  division.  From  the  investiture  of  the 
Normans  by  Nicholas  II.  in  1059  with  the  splendid 
South  two  hundred  and  forty  years  may  be  reckoned 
(to  1299)  during  which  the  Holy  See  exercised  or 
insisted  on  those  feudal  rights  which  were  judged 
necessary  at  Rome  to  its  independence.  They  were 
now  brought  down  to  parchment  decrees  and  cere- 
monial services.  Even  the  strange,  and  in  modern 
eyes  unjust,  absolution  from  sealed  engagements 
which  Nicholas  IV.  in  1289  gave  to  Charles  the 
Lame,  thereby  hoping  to  keep  a  hand  upon  Sicily, 
availed  not  for  one  instant  to  delay  the  inevitable. 
Feudalism  had  done  its  work,  it  was  going  the  way 
of  men's  devices  ;  the  Pope,  conservative  by  nature, 
tenacious  of  what  had  once  been  his  on  whatever 
^  conditions,  felt  the  approaching  change  ;  not  he  alone, 
but  all  feudal  sovereigns  must  suffer  or  be  transformed. 


VITERBO— PALAZZO    ALESSANDRIXI. 


374 


CON R A  DIN — SICILIAN    VESPERS 


The  absolute  monarch  was  to  absorb  in  himself 
powers  of  the  clergy,  powers  of  the  nobles  ;  to  be 
protector  of  the  free  cities  and  the  whole  nation,  a 
Caisar  who  would  take  no  orders  from  Pope  or 
Parliament.  In  this  long -threatened  revolution 
France  led  the  way.  France,  at  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  broke  up  the  system  of  Europe, 
as  she  did  on  a  larger  scale  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth.  We  are  now  to  trace  the  steps  of  this 
most  memorable  transaction. 


XXIII 


ROMAN    LAW   VERSUS    ROMAN    PONTIFF 


(1226-1287) 


Gibbon  has  told  us  that  the  Kingdom  of  France 
was  made  by  the  French  Bishops  as  bees  make  their 
honeycomb.  Clovis,  Charles  Martel,  Pepin,  Charle- 
magne, were  all  champions  of  the  Church.  And  even 
the  "  bad  seed  "  of  Hugh  Capet,  the  wicked  excom- 
municated Kings,  did  not  shoot  up  into  rebellion 
against  Rome,  despite  their  scandalous  living. 
Rheims  and  Tours,  famous  for  their  shrines,  were 
minor  capitals  in  which  the  "  Abbot  of  St.  Martin's  " 
was  always  at  home.  He  was  brought  up  in  the 
cloister  of  Notre  Dame  or  St.  Denis  ;  he  had  Suger 
for  his  Prime  Minister,  St.  Bernard  at  his  right  hand 
in  council  ;  Pope  after  Pope  took  refuge  with  him 
from  the  fury  of  Roman  mobs  or  German  lanzknechts ; 
he  was  their  man,  though  never  a  feudatory.  His  little 
kingdom,  hemmed  round  about  by  the  wide  provinces 
of  insolent  Norman  England  ;  by  industrious,  hard- 
fisted  Flanders  ;  by  Burgundian  Dukes  and  Counts 

375 


376  ROMAN   LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN  PONTIFF 

of  Prov-ence  ;  was  yet  compact,  defensible,  and  in  a 
manner  sacred.  When  the  Godfreys  of  Bouillon 
rushed  off  to  Crusades,  he  sta)ed  behind  to  pick  up 
the  inheritances  which  they  left  in  pledge.  Seldom 
a  man  of  genius,  he  was  singularly  debonair,  a  father 
to  his  people,  and  in  their  hard  fights  with  iron  barons 
a  Patriot  King.  Until  the  twelfth  century  was  out  he 
did  not  count  for  much  in  Europe.  But  John  Lack- 
land dropped  his  French  provinces  like  silver  plates 
from  his  pocket,  and  Philip  Augustus  rounded  his 
dominions  with  them.  Normandy,  Picardy,  fell  to 
his  share.  Bouvines  set  him  free  from  the  German 
Empire.  The  Albigenses  by  their  Counts  of 
Toulouse,  of  Foix,  of  the  whole  South,  were  forfeit 
to  Rome.  But  it  was  Amaury  de  Montfort,  son  of 
their  conqueror,  who  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of 
France.  Louis  VIII.  subdued  Nismes,  Albi,  Carcas- 
sonne, but  died  of  this  hot  campaign,  leaving  a 
Spanish  wife,  Blanche  of  Castile,  to  cope  with  unruly 
nobles,  and  a  child  who  became  St.  Louis  (1226). 

The  Salic  kingdom  had,  in  legal  phrase,  fallen  to 
the  distaff.  But  Queen  Blanche  managed  the  spindle 
like  a  sword.  We  figure  this  valiant  woman  as  a 
haughty,  severe,  not  amiable  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
gifted  with  more  will  and  resolution  ;  hard  upon  her 
gentle  son,  whom  she  carried  with  her  as  a  relique  in 
its  shrine  when  she  attacked  the  feudal  chiefs  ;  pure 
as  an  angel,  but  always  Spanish — that  is  to  say, 
looking  on  her  enemies  as  Moors  and  her  friends  as 
knights  bound  to  follow  her  in  the  Holy  War.  She 
proved  a  match  for  Mauclerc,  the  bandit  Count  of 
Brittany.      From    Thibaut   of   Navarre   she   got   by 


THE    CHRISTIAN   MARCUS  '^'/'J 

purchase  Chartres,  Blois,  Chateaudun.  In  1236 
Louis  came  of  age.  He  reigned  until  1270.  The 
Hohenstauffen  at  this  very  time  were  going  down 
to  their  grave,  and  with  them  the  Empire.  Heresies 
were  rife.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Popes,  though 
men  of  consummate  abiHty,  gave  edification  to 
thoughtful  Christians.  If  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  by 
his  exquisite  goodness,  lights  up  the  beginning  of 
that  troubled  thirteenth  century,  St.  Louis  sheds 
lustre  on  its  middle  period.  We  may  define  him 
as  the  Catholic  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  as  St.  Francis 
on  the  throne.  In  every  situation  he  is  charming, 
brave,  just,  tender,  unaffected.  Who  has  yet  written 
of  him  without  a  smile  and  a  tear  ?  He  is  Marcus 
Aurelius,  stoical  towards  himself,  considerate  of  all 
the  world,  but  never  melancholy  as  he  that  on  the 
Pannonian  frontier  wrote  those  beautiful,  sad  pages 
we  know  so  well.  The  Middle  Ages,  it  has  been  too 
graphically  said,  came  to  an  end  in  a  Saint-King  and 
an  Emperor- Pope. 

St.  Louis  kept  no  diary  of  his  thoughts  ;  but 
a  precious  inheritance  from  the  Middle  Ages,  more 
authentic  than  the  Fiorctti  which  describe  the 
Umbrian  Saint,  and  hardly  less  picturesque,  is  the 
Life  in  Old  French  by  the  Sieur  de  Joinville,  candid 
as  a  child's  story,  and  as  touching.  His  slight  frame, 
long  thin  fingers,  delicate  health  give  an  impression 
that  Louis  was  not  meant  for  active  life.  He  never 
showed  a  general's  sagacity,  but  was  simply  a  knight 
in  armour.  Yet  he  won  the  battle  of  Taillebourg  in 
1242  over  Henry  III.  of  England,  which  utterly  smote 
feudalism  ;  he  kept  Provence  and  Languedoc  against 


378  ROMAN  LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN  PONTIFF 

the  younger  Raymund  of  Toulouse,  whom,  on  his 
submission,  he  treated  kindly;  and,  in  1235,  he  took 
the  Cross  to  drive  back  that  immense  Mongol  or 
Kharismian  invasion,  before  which  Jerusalem  had 
yielded  and  all  the  Western  States,  Mohammedan 
equally  as  Christian,  were  paralysed.  For  once, 
Blanche  of  Castile  dissuaded  her  son  from  the  heroic 
course,  and  for  once  he  would  not  obey. 

From  the  Danube,  as  we  saw,  Frederick's  gallant 
sons  had  turned  back  the  Tartar  myriads  ;  but  even 
the  Moslems  entreated  Louis,  as  did  the  unhappy 
Emperor  of  Byzantium,  to  lead  his  Franks  against 
these  wild  shepherds.  At  Citeaux,  not  without 
repugnance,  he  met  Pope  Innocent  IV.,  who  had 
vainly  striven  to  draw  Louis  into  his  quarrels  and 
now  did  not  favour  a  distant  Crusade.  Many  of  the 
Albigenses,  despoiled  of  their  lands  by  De  Montfort, 
the  King  took  on  this  sacred  expedition.  He  had  it 
in  mind  to  colonise  the  coasts  of  Egypt ;  there  was 
a  great  gathering,  but  eight  months'  delay  at  Cyprus, 
whence  he  sailed  for  Alexandria  in  June,  1249. 

But  a  tempest  drove  him  towards  Damietta  ;  he 
landed,  captured  the  town,  and  should  have  marched 
to  Cairo.  His  soldiers  plundered  ;  lagged  on  the 
road  ;  fought  well  ;  but  knew  no  discipline.  Louis, 
taller  than  most  by  a  head  and  shoulders,  in  his 
golden  helmet,  a  German  sword  in  his  hand,  was  the 
picture  of  a  perfect  knight.  They  told  him  that  his 
brother,  Robert  of  Artois,  had  been  killed.  "  God  be 
praised  for  the  grace  He  has  given  him  !  "  cried  Louis, 
and  dashed  away  the  big  tears  ;  "  I  know  he  is  in 
Paradise."     He  won  the  battle  of  Mansurah  ;  but  the 


ST.   LOUIS   A    PRISONER 


379 


?ick,  the  wounded,  the  plague,  Greek  fire,  and  an 
^nemy  in  pursuit  on  the  Nile,  as  on  its  shores,  brought 
:he  inevitable  disaster.  The  Crusaders  were  slain  in 
leaps  or  compelled  to  deny  Christ  Louis  was  taken 
.vith  his  chief  nobles  and  ten  thousand  of  his  men. 
[f  he  would  consent  to  give  up  Jerusalem,  he  might 


KlXCi    LOUIS    1\.    (ST.    LOUIS)    OF    FRANXE. 


)e  free.  He  offered  Damietta  and  four  hundred 
housand  bezants  of  gold.  But  when  the  Soldan  was 
or  accepting  these  terms,  his  Mamelukes  murdered 
lim.  The  story  ran  that  they  thought  of  setting  up 
^ouis  in  his  stead.  Just  as  likely  is  it  that  they 
vould   have  murdered  the  French   King  too,  but  for 


380  ROMAN   LAW    VERSUS    ROMAN   PONTIFF 

his  mild  intrepidity  and  unruffled  cheerfulness,  which 
none  that  saw  him  could  ever  resist.  On  conditions 
deemed  moderate  he  was  held  to  ransom.  He 
lingered  a  whole  year  in  Palestine  ;  built  again  the 
walls  of  Acre,  Jaffa,  and  Caisarea  ;  and  returned  to 
Europe  in  November,  1252,  with  the  glory  of  a 
saint  and  martyr.  Queen  Blanche  was  dead  ;  his 
country  cried  out  for  him. 

It  was  the  destiny  of  Louis,  in  a  quaint  but  apt 
phrase,  to  be  justice  of  the  peace  to  all  nations. 
England,  which  under  John  had  been  made  the  fief, 
seemed  under  his  vacillating  successor  to  be  the  farm, 
of  the  Papacy.  Henry  HI.  squandered  and  plundered  ; 
his  Queen's  uncle,  Boniface  of  Savoy,  little  better  than 
a  bandit,  was  thrust  into  the  See  of  Canterbury. 
Innocent  IV.  treated  English  riches  as  an  inex- 
haustible mine.  He  once  demanded  for  his  absentee 
favourites  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  livings  ;  the 
clergy,  as  he  argued,  were  his  vassals  ;  they  must 
render  suit  and  service,  or  its  equivalent  in  hard  cash, 
while  he  carried  on  his  war  against  Frederick  the 
Antichrist.  Langton  had  all  along  upheld  the  Great 
Charter  ;  Edmund,  who  succeeded  him,  a  lesser  but 
very  winning  Thomas  a  Becket,  did  what  in  him  lay 
to  reform  abuses,  and  died  in  exile  at  Pontigny.  The 
manly  Grossetete  rose  up  at  Lyons  to  denounce 
iniquities  that  he  had  fought  against  at  home,  and 
withstood  Innocent  to  his  face.  The  undergraduates 
at  Oxford  assailed  Otho,  the  Papal  Legate,  and  drove 
him  out  of  the  city. 

To  supply  Prince  Edmund  with  funds  for  his  mad 
Sicilian    expedition    which  never   came   off,    Henry 


ANNULS    OXFORD    PROVISIONS  38 1 

pawned  the  kingdom  to  the  Pope,  and  asked  his 
barons  to  redeem  the  pledge.  They  answered  by  the 
voice  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  a  saint  like  his  father,  in 
the  Oxford  Parliament  (1258).  Its  provisions  made 
the  King  a  lay  figure,  managed  by  fifteen  nobles. 
Alexander  IV.  dispensed  him  from  his  oath,  which 
Edward  the  Prince  insisted  on  keeping.  Civil  war 
followed.  St.  Louis  was  called  in  to  arbitrate.  He 
annulled  the  Provisions,  gave  back  the  royal  power  to 
Henry,  but  left  the  English  Charters  in  force  (1264). 
A  second  campaign  was  the  result,  ending  in  the 
battle  and  the  *'  Mise  "  of  Lewes.  Then  came  the 
first  real  Parliament,  and  the  King's  abeyance,  which 
led  up  to  the  Eight  at  Evesham  and  De  Montfort's 
heroic  death  (1265).  His  Parliament  had  been 
"  partisan,  revolutionary,  transient."  Ottobuoni, 
the  Legate,  appeared  in  St.  Paul's,  did  away  with 
Henry's  oaths,  and  declared  all  that  Simon  had 
striven  for  utterly  abolished.  It  was  in  vain. 
Edward  I.,  who  is  called  the  "  English  Justinian," 
would  complete  hereafter  that  which  the  great  Earl 
of  Leicester  had  begun. 

That  St.  Louis  when  he  annulled  the  Provisions  of 
Oxford  acted  according  to  his  lights,  no  man  may 
doubt.  Conscience  had  already  urged  him  into 
surrendering  large  lands  in  Aquitaine  to  England 
which  any  but  he  would  have  held  against  all 
comers.  Read  his  spirited  words  in  Joinville.  But 
as  the  Popes,  in  these  Charters  and  Parliaments, 
could  see  nothing  but  rebellion  demanding  unheard 
of  privileges,  so  Louis  felt  that  the  royal  authority 
must  be  maintained  in  spite  of  barons  whose  fellows 


^^--^ 


382  ROMAN  LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN  PONTIFF 

in  France  were  men  like  Thibaut,  the  Robber-Count 
of  Champagne.  Thibaut  was  a  Crusader,  therefore 
inviolable,  and  under  the  Pope's  emphatic  protection  ; 
yet  Louis  had  smitten  him  down.  But  at  Westminster 
the  Commons'  House,  with  its  knights  of  the  shire 
and  burgesses  from  the  towns,  was  destined  to  the 
long  trials  and  decisive  triumphs  which  have  made  it 
supreme  ;  at  Paris  the  so-called  Parliament  was  to 
become  a  lawyers'  assembly,  the  instrument  of  an 
absolute  monarch  whose  decrees  it  gloried  in  carrying 
out  to  the  utmost.  England  never  lost  its  Magna 
Charta.  But  of  the  French  legists  it  is  said  that  the 
Pandects  were  their  Bible  ;  they  would  allow  no 
check  upon  the  King  ;  he  was  their  C^sar,  to  whom 
they  rendered  the  things  that  were  God's,  as  well  as 
his  own. 

We  have  watched  this  movement  at  its  beginning 
under  Frederick  Barbarossa  ;  since  his  day,  it  had 
embraced  Church  and  State  ;  the  turbulent,  half-mad 
thirteenth  century  strove  yet  with  all  its  powers  to 
establish  the  reign  of  law.  From  Innocent  III.  to 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  ;  from  Frederick  II.  to  Philip 
the  Fair  and  Edward  I.,  it  goes  on,  an  irimeiy^e 
and  partly  successful  attempt  to  bring  conuiSifiG^ut 
of  chaos,  to  restore  the  supremacy  of  Roman  Law  in 
its  twofold  form,  Canon  and  Civil.  But  here,  almost 
of  necessity,  layman  and  priest  came  into  conflict. 
When  Frederick  II.  codified  the  Norman  statutes  in 
Sicily,  he  trenched  on  immunities  which  the  clergy 
would  not  give  up.  All  over  Europe  the  quarrel  that 
in  Henry  II.'s  time  raged  round  the  Constitutions  of 
Clarendon  was  now,  or  soon  would  be,  the  question  of 


PItolo] 


y\urdcin  Frcres. 


ST.    LOUIS    ADMINISTERS  JUSTICE. 

{Fresco  in  the  Pantheon^  Paris.) 


384  ROM  Ay  LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN   PONTIFF 

the  day.  It  was  at  once  home  and  foreign  ;  were 
clerics  prepared  to  submit  their  temporal  causes  to 
the  Common  Law  ?  Would  the  Pope  cease  to  tax 
them  and  the  Kingdom  without  regard  to  the  duties, 
rights,  and  charges  of  the  Crown  ?  The  dispute  was 
concerned  with  lands  and  money ;  it  never  directly 
touched  doctrine.  As  the  law  became  centralised, 
taxation  followed  it.  The  Pope,  in  his  quality  of 
Commander  of  the  Faithful,  had  long  raised  a 
revenue  from  the  whole  of  Christendom.  But  the 
Crusades  were  ending;  these  subsidies  had  often 
been  misused  and  turned  aside  from  their  legitimate 
object,  never  more  so  than  under  Innocent  IV.  and 
Clement  IV.  Kings  built  up  Codes  by  way  of 
consolidating  their  jurisdiction.  Alfonso  the  Wise  in 
Spain,  Frederick  in  the  Empire,  set  an  example ;  but 
it  was  probably  St.  Louis  to  whom  Edward  I.  owed 
his  lawgiving ;  and  beyond  peradventure  from  him 
the  French  legislation  is  derived  which  set  the  royal 
Court  of  Appeal  above  all  others.  In  this  sense  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  though  not  his  work,  may  be 
attributed  to  his  age  and  advisers,  among  whom  the 
chief,  Pierre  de  Fontaines,  had  embodied  no  little  of 
the  Roman  Law  in  his   Counsel  to  a  Friend. 

When,  beneath  the  oaks  of  Vincennes,  he  did 
justice,  "  fair  and  round,"  as  Joinville  says  ;  when  he 
declared  to  Enguerrand  de  Coucy  that  he  would  not 
admit  him  to  wager  of  battle  lest  in  such  cases  the 
Church  and  the  poor  should  never  find  champions 
against  lordly  barons ';  when  he  took  counsel  with 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  yet  gave  judgment  adverse 
to  haughty  prelates  like  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais  ;  in 


THE    GLORY   OF  PARIS  385 

all  this  he  was  bringing  the  idea  of  law,  inipartial 
and  without  regard  for  privilege,  into  a  world  which 
confounded  right  with  station  and  sacrificed  modern 
society  to  its  ancient  defenders.  "  Fair  son,"  he  said 
in  his  illness  at  Fontainebleau,  to  Philip  the  Hardy, 
"  win  the  love  of  your  people  ;  for  I  had  rather  a 
Scot  came  from  Scotland  and  governed  them  well 
and  loyally,  than  that  you  governed  them  ill  in  men's 
sight."  Such  was  a  saint's  conception  of  law.  But  a 
kingdom  could  not  be  ruled  by  open-air  courts  in  the 
Forest  of  Vincennes  ;  from  the  middle  class  had 
l^egun  to  spring  up  an  aristocracy  of  the  robe,  men 
who  were  neither  nobles  nor  clerics,  and  who  dis- 
covered in  the  Crown  an  authority  which  they  soon 
learned  to  manipulate.  They  were  "  knights  of  the 
law,"  masters  in  chicanery,  hard  as  iron  ;  these  were 
the  new  order  that  "  with  texts  and  quotations  "  from 
Old  Rome  transformed  the  Middle  Age  to  the 
despotism  of  the  sixteenth  and  later  centuries. 

Old  Rome  meant  the  city  of  the  Caesars.  Papal 
Rome  had  long  been  falling  into  ruin,  its  ways 
desolate,  a  thousand  towers  looking  down  on  the 
Seven  Hills,  inhabited  by  robber-chiefs  who  preyed 
on  every  sort  of  pilgrim,  cleric  or  lay,  and  lifted  their 
banners  against  the  Pope,  though  enraged  when  he 
fled  from  them.  But  Paris  was  the  capital  of  civilisa- 
tion. Philip  Augustus  had  done  great  things  for  it ; 
he  may  be  said  to  have  founded  the  city  that  has 
ever  since  included  the  Palace,  the  People,  and 
the  University,  as  in  a  ring  fence.  Thanks  to  Robert 
de  Curzon  in  12 15,  to  Gregory  IX.  in  1231,  the 
University   was  self-governing ;    and    with    its    four 

26 


386  ROMAN  LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN   PONTIFF 

nations,  its  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  scholars,  offered 
to  later  times  a  picture  of  that  fierce  intellectual 
democracy  which  has  made  Athens  immortal.  Seven 
Popes,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  were  among  its 
students.  Thither  came  the  most  brilliant  of  the 
Schoolmen,  Peter  Lombard,  who  died  Bishop  of 
Paris,  Alexander  Hales,  Albert  the  Great,  St.  Bona- 
venture,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus, — all 
Mendicant  Friars,  devoted  to  the  Papacy,  as  the 
lawyers,  clergy,  and  doctors  were  to  the  Crown. 
What  did  their  coming  portend? 

At  first,  if  we  believe  the  pious  Tillemont,  they 
were  received  with  joy.  St.  Dominic  had  never 
forbidden  his  friars  to  cultivate  learning  and  take 
degrees.  But  St.  Francis  had  other  thoughts  ;  he 
would  not  have  one  of  his  disciples  seated  in  a 
teacher's  chair ;  they  were  to  be  humble  saints  rather 
than  Canonists  or  divines.  The  torrent  swept  them 
on  ;  it  was  a  century  of  ambition  to  know,  to  read 
^  Aristotle,  to  lecture  on  the  Sentences  of  thg 
1  Lombard.  In  1228,  when  the  wild  young  scholars 
rebelled  and  fled  from  Paris,  the  Dominicans  set 
up  their  first  chair  ;  in  1244  Innocent  IV.  commanded 
that  the  Begging  Friars  should  be  admitted  to 
academic  honours.  They  carried  all  before  them. 
Genius  and  success  were  theirs  ;  opposition  broke 
out ;  the  Dominicans  were  expelled,  reinstated  by 
Innocent,  but  put  under  episcopal  authority  (1254). 
Alexander  IV.  revoked  this  unusual  clause.  Then 
William  de  St.  Amour  attacked  the  friars  in  a 
pamphlet  which  is  the  medieval  equivalent  of  Pascal's 
Provincial  Letters.      He  published  his  Perils  of  the 


388  ROMAN   LAW    VERSUS   ROMAN  PONTIFF 

Last  Times,  an  invective  in  which  all  alike, 
Dominicans,  Spiritual  Franciscans,  and  Moderates, 
were  denounced  as  false  prophets,  believers  in  the 
"  Eternal  Gospel "  of  Abbot  Joachim,  Beghards  and 
heretics,  shameless  in  their  rapacity,  sworn  enemies 
of  the  clerical  order.  His  book  was  condemned  by  a 
Papal  commission.  St.  Amour  appealed.  At  Anagni, 
in  presence  of  Alexander  IV,,  the  case  was  debated, 
Albert  the  Dominican  acting  on  behalf  of  the  friars. 
Pope  Alexander  would  not  convict  St.  Amour  of 
heresy  ;  but  he  censured  the  writing  as  a  libel,  having 
already  deposed  John  of  Parma,  the  mystic  General 
of  the  Franciscans.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  with  his 
prodigious  memory,  reduced  the  discussion  to  order 
and  answered  St.  Amour.  But  in  popular  estimation 
the  University  had  won.  During  the  latter  years  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  trials,  dissensions,  and  dis- 
credit clouded  over  the  great  hopes  which,  at  its 
beginning,  had  dawned  on  the  Mendicants.  Their 
eclipse  darkened  the  Papacy,  which  could  no  longer 
rely  upon  them  in  the  crisis  that  was  rapidly 
approaching. 

Amid  these  never-ending  disputes  between  the  old 
order  and  the  new,  symptoms  at  once  of  death  and 
birth,  came  the  horrid  intelligence  that  the  Egyptians 
were  seizing  in  Palestine  whatever  had  escaped  the 
Mongol  ravages.  Caesarea,  Jaffa,  Antioch  had  fallen  ; 
seventeen  thousand  Christians  were  slain,  a  hundred 
thousand  sold.  King  Louis  resolved  on  taking  the 
cross  ;  he  did  his  utmost  to  draw  in  the  neighbouring 
States  ;  he  led  with  him  a  great  company  of  barons  ; 
but  he  could  not  persuade  his  people.     Clement  IV., 


LAST  CRUSADE  389 

though  vvilHng  to  raise  subsidies  for  the  Holy  War, 
neither  approved  nor  encouraged  this  expedition.  It 
seemed  to  be  a  bh'nd  man's  stroke,  aimless,  vacant. 
For  twenty  days  the  army  was  at  sea  ;  Charles  of 
Anjou  advised  his  brother  to  land  in  Tunis.  Eight 
days  after,  the  plague  fell  on  the  defenceless  host  ; 
the  marshals  died  ;  the  King's  youngest  son  died  ; 
it  was  the  end.  Louis,  calm  as  ever,  had  himself  laid 
out  on  ashes  ;  he  blessed  his  followers  ;  and  sighing 
forth  his  lifelong  aspiration,  "Jerusalem,  ah  Jeru- 
salem !  "  passed  away  (August,  1270). 

The  last  Crusade  !  Glance  for  a  moment  at 
Edward  of  England  drawing  his  sword,  in  those 
sacred  fields,  against  the  infidel  ;  then  look  westward 
again.  Never  any  more  will  the  chivalry  of  the 
Franks  mount  the  walls  of  Zion,  to  the  cry  of 
Dieu  le  veult.  Christians,  Saracens,  are  doomed  to 
flee  before  an  enemy  from  the  salt  Asiatic  steppes, 
fiercer  than  the  Arab,  impregnable  to  civilisation  ; 
the  Turk  is  coming  who  will  seize  Egypt  with  one 
hand,  Byzantium  with  the  other.  He  will  advance  to 
Belgrade,  plunder  Otranto,  besiege  Vienna  ;  he  will 
last  on,  century  after  century,  till  Holy  Russia  has 
gained  strength  to  grapple  with  him.  Islam  survived 
the  Crusades.  By  an  undreamt-of  revolution,  the 
Moslem  world,  which  two  hundred  years'  hard 
fighting  left  everywhere  except  in  Spain  as  it  had 
been,  was  to  be  subdued  or  ringed  round  about  with 
fire,  by  England,  after  it  had  thrown  off  its  allegiance 
to  Rome,  and  by  the  Orientalised  Muscovites  who 
revere  the  Church  of  Constantinople.  What  the 
Crusades  did  for  Europe  ;    how  they  opened  larger 


390         ROMAN  LAW    VERSUS  ROMAN  PONTIFF 

horizons,  broke  feudalism,  gave  an  entrance  to 
Eastern  art,  philosophy,  science,  and  superstition  ; 
how  they  first  exalted  the  Pope,  and  then  tempted  to 
the  multiplication  of  Holy  Wars  which  were  but  civil 
butcheries,  the  reader  has  doubtless  been  considering, 
and  there  is  no  space  to  tell.  With  St.  Louis  they 
ended,  once  for  all.  The  conquests  of  England  or 
Russia  in  the  East  have  drawn  their  motives  from 
commerce,  policy,  and  adventure,  but  never  from 
religion. 


XXIV 


PHILIP   THE   FAIR   AND    POPE   BONIFACE 


(I  287-1 300) 


That  new  world,  which  was  so  unhke  the  old,  is 
painted  by  Michelet  in  forbidding  colours — "  attorney, 
usurer,  Gascon,  Lombard,  Jew " ;  such  are  the 
epithets  under  which  he  presents  it  to  modern 
students  for  whom  the  Middle  Age  possesses  a  com- 
plex charm  derived  from  its  poetry,  art,  romance, 
knight-errantry,  and  a  religion  the  most  picturesque, 
naive,  and  heroic.  Feudalism  travestied  with  purple 
patches  of  the  grand  old  Roman  Law  ;  Kings,  in 
make  and  descent  ba^rbarian,  styling  themselves 
Caisars  ;  litigious  Gauls,  professing  the  eloquence  of 
Cicero,  and  outdoing  in  hypocrisy  the  augurs  whose 
technique  they  imitated  ;  we  cannot  admire  all  this, 
even  if  it  brought  mankind  a  stage  further  on  its 
way.  The  lawyer-King  is  Philip  the  Fair,  that  mere 
"  handsome  image,"  said  Bernard  de  Saisset ;  and  his 
task  may  be  summed  up  as  the  establishment  on 
a    free    secular    basis    of    the    Civil    Order.     What 

3yi 


39^        PHILIP    THE   FAIR   AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

Frederick  II.  meant  to  do,  but  could  not  succeed  in, 
Philip  the  Fair  did.  In  1287  he  ordained  that  all 
those  who  had  temporal  jurisdiction  in  France,  from 
Dukes,  Counts,  and  Archbishops  down  to  simple 
gentlemen,  should  institute  laics  for  their  bailies, 
provosts,  and  officers  of  justice  ;  that  they  should  by 
no  means  appoint  clerics,  who  in  case  of  delinquency 
would  have  pleaded  their  "  clergy "  ;  and  that  no 
Churchman  should  act  as  procurator  in  the  royal  or 
baronial  courts.  At  one  stroke  the  Parliament,  the 
tribunals,  were  taken  out  of  sanctuary.  It  is  the 
Roman  Law  come  to  life  again,  not  in  the  Pope  but 
in  the  King. 

Let  us  keep  firm  hold  of  this  clue  ;  without  it  we 
shall  never  understand  why  Philip  and  Boniface 
quarrelled.  But  to  sketch  the  ground  on  which  they 
fought  their  battle,  we  must  take  up  the  story  of  the 
Popes  where  we  left  it  on  the  death  of  Honorius  IV. 
(April,  1287).  The  conclave  was  long  and  stormy  ; 
broken  up  in  the  hot  months,  it  lasted  till  February, 
1288,  when  the  Bishop  of  Palestrina  was  elected. 
Nicholas  IV.  had  been  General  of  the  Grey  Friars  ; 
poverty  mounted  the  Papal  Chair  with  him  ;  but  his 
short  reign  was  a  chapter  of  misfortunes.  He  abro- 
gated to  no  purpose  the  treaty  of  Campo  Franco,  by 
which  Charles  II.,  the  lame  King  of  Naples,  gave  up 
Sicily  to  Arragon.  Though  raised  to  the  purple 
by  Nicholas,  the  Orsini  Pope,  he  greatly  advanced 
the  Colonnas,  by  this  time  more  powerful  than  any 
other  Roman  house.  In  1291  Acre  fell,  and  no 
Crusade  avenged  the  shame  of  Christians.  The 
Powers  made  war  and  peace  without  regard  to  the 


PAPA   ANGELICO  393 

Holy  See.  But  Nicholas,  like  earlier  Pontiffs,  was 
said  to  have  died  of  a  broken  heart  on  hearing 
the  disastrous  news  from  Palestine. 

Another  Conclave,  April,  1292  ;  twelve  Cardinals 
debating  in  Rome  till  summer  chases  them  away  ; 
two  rival  Senators,  with  their  ruffians  set  in  array  and 
blood  flowing, — a  year  of  interregnum.  The  Electors 
meet  again  at  Perugia ;  Charles  the  Neapolitan 
comes  to  overawe  them,  and  is  himself  overawed  by 
Benedict  Gaetani ;  but  no  decision  follows.  Then, 
with  dramatic  suddenness — the  character  of  this 
time — a  hermit-saint  and  visionary  is  dragged  from 
his  cave  and  acclaimed  Pope.  Peter  Morone  had 
lived  the  austerest  life,  hidden  in  the  Apennines 
above  Sulmona,  revered  by  the  people  and  the 
spiritual  Franciscans,  in  whose  eyes  he  practised 
the  poverty  and  was  absorbed  in  the  contemplation 
dear  to  their  dead  master.  It  was  a  scene  worthy  of 
the  pre-Raphaelite  canvas  when  Cardinals  in  their 
purple  came,  with  wild  crowds  about  them,  to  the 
barred  window  of  this  white-bearded  anchorite, 
bringing  him  the  Papal  crown.  He  looked  up  from 
his  ecstasy,  wept,  submitted  ;  he  suffered  the  crimson 
mantle  to  be  thrown  over  his  sackcloth,  and  rode  on 
an  ass  into  Aquila  where  he  was  hailed  with  joy  by 
enormous  crowds.  Then  he  was  taken  by  King 
Charles,  virtually  a  prisoner,  to  Naples. 

Extraordinary  scenes  followed  ;  touching,  yet 
grotesque.  Coelestine  V.  could  converse  with  angels  ; 
among  men  he  was  lost.  Like  a  child  he  gave  what- 
ever they  asked  to  friends  at  hand  ;  he  knew  only 
faces  from  the  Abruzzi  ;  the  regular  officials,  broken 


V 


394        PHILIP   THE   FAIR  AND  POPE   BONIFACE 

in  to  Canon  Law,  were  aghast,  angry,  dexterous  in 
undoing  what  he  had  done,  as  the  witty  Jacobus  a 
Voragine  said,  "  in  the  fulness  of  his  simpHcity." 
Charles  II.  compelled  or  persuaded  (it  was  much  the 
same)  this  good  Pope  to  create  thirteen  Cardinals,  of 
whom  seven  where  French.  But  he  longed  for  his 
cave  in  the  mountains  ;  and  rumour,  it  is  probable, 
lied  when  it  asserted  that  Gaetani,  who  had  come 
to  Naples,  terrified  the  hermit  with  nightly  warnings, 
feigned  of  Heaven,  and  brought  him  to  abdicate. 
"  From  cowardice  he  made  the  grand  refusal,"  sings 
Dante  in  undying  scorn.  He  resolved  on  laying 
down  the  tiara.  This  was  without  parallel.  Could 
it  be  lawfully  done?  Coelestine,  in  a  solemn  pro- 
nouncement, said  yes,  it  could  ;  he  would  do  it  ;  and 
in  his  old  sackcloth  he  went  back  rejoicing  to  the 
barred  cell.     Who  should  be  Pope  in  his  stead  ? 

In  that  lofty  place  the  Franciscan  ideal  had  shone 
for  a  moment,  only  to  be  eclipsed.  Now  the  Canon 
Law,  personified  in  Gaetani,  was  to  have  its  turn. 
By  what  sleight  of  hand  Boniface  VIII.  outdid  his 
competitors  we  know  not.  He  was  chosen,  despite 
the  King,  at  Naples  ;  or  was  it  after  a  bargain  with 
the  King,  as  Villani  affirms  ?  Chosen,  however 
(December  23,  1294),  he  "came  in  like  a  fox,  ruled 
like  a  lion,  died  like  a  dog."  How  much  of  his 
legend  can  we  believe  ?  "  Of  all  the  Roman  Pontiffs," 
says  Milman,  "Boniface  VIII.  has  left  the  darkest 
name  for  craft,  ambition,  even  for  avarice  and  cruelty." 
But  names  prove  nothing.  Who  are  the  witnesses 
against  Boniface?  Unhappy  man,  it  was  his  mis- 
fortune to  find  himself  at  war  with  all  the  Catholic 


GAETAJ^I   THE    CANONIST  395 

Kings  ;  with  the  ReHgious  Orders,  with  the  Roman 
nobiHty,  with  Florence,  and  the  Itahan  Democrats. 
In  the  popular  songs  and  lampoons  of  Jacopone  da 
Todi  he  was  held  up  to  satire  ;  his  good  fame  was 
blasted  by  sworn  accusations  in  French  Parliaments  ; 
Philip  the  Fair  would  not  let  him  rest  in  a  dis- 
honoured grave,  but  pursued  his  memory  as  if  it  had 
been  a  liv^ing  thing,  to  be  transfixed  with  arrows  ; 
and,  beyond  all  this,  he  awakened  the  sad  and  terrible 
spirit  of  Dante,  sublime  but  pitiless,  to  hate  him  with 
an  everlasting  hatred,  amid  the  flames  of  which 
Boniface  looks  upon  us,  in  the  deep  gloom  of  the 
Inferno.  Most  miserable  of  Popes ;  not  therefore 
most  guilty !  His  remembrance  will  never  fade ; 
long,  long  he  will  be  banned,  and  'scarcely  at  all 
find  apologists,  in  the  debate  which  his  pretensions, 
even  more  than  his  acts,  cannot  cease  to  provoke. 
But  in  the  great  arena  he  fell  vanquished — he  and  his 
Canon  Law  ;  some  pity  is  due  to  the  dying  gladiator  ; 
some  pathos  stirs  at  the  passing  of  a  sovereignty 
which,  contested  or  triumphant,  had  lasted  down 
from  Charlemagne  five  hundred  years. 

Benedict  Gaetani  was  a  native  and  noble  of  the 
little  mountain-city,  Anagni,  to  which  our  history 
alludes  so  often.  An  old  man  novi^i  but  vigorous  and 
even  violent,  he  had  gone  through  every  stage  of 
Roman  training.  With  Ottobuoni  in  England  he 
saw,  but  surely  did  not  see  into,  the  revolution  led 
by  Simon  de  Montfort  which,  by  Charter  and  Parlia- 
ment, was  to  create  an  English  Constitution.  He 
was  sent  to  adjust  the  quarrel  over  Provence  which 
divided  Charles  of  Anjou  and  the  Emperor  Rudolph, 


396        PHILIP    THE   FAIR   AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

on  which  occasion  he  took  the  Cardinal's  hat.  He 
had  dealt  with  the  affairs  of  Portugal.  Lately,  in 
Paris  where  as  a  youth  he  studied  law,  he  had  gone 
on  a  message  to  Philip  the  Fair  ;  had  offered,  in  the 
name  of  Pope  Nicholas,  to  arbitrate  between  him  and 
Edward  I. ;  and  at  Tarascon  had  determined  articles 
of  peace  between  Naples  and  Arragon.  There  is  no 
reason  to  cast  a  shadow  on  his  morals,  or  to  charge 
him  with  impiety.  Such  accusations,  made  after- 
wards by  his  deadliest  foes,  and  never  proved,  were 
the  disgraceful  weapons  with  which  Italian  factions 
did  not  scruple  to  assail  adversaries.  Boniface 
showed  neither  the  meekness  of  a  saint  nor  the  self- 
control  of  a  statesman  on  the  Papal  throne  ;  but  that 
he  was  a  profligate  has  never  been  asserted  on 
grounds  worthy  of  consideration. 

His  vigour  was  at  once  apparent.  In  majestic 
terms  he  granted  Naples  once  more  to  King  Charles 
as  vassal  of  the  Holy  See.  Returning  to  Rome,  he 
had  himself  crowned  magnificently.  He  consigned 
the  Abbot  of  Monte  Cassino  to  a  dungeon  beneath 
the  waters  of  Lago  di  Bolsena.  He  acted  as  liege 
Lord  of  Hungary  on  the  death  of  its  young  prince. 
By  an  official  declaration  he  made  sure  that  Cceles- 
tine's  claim  should  not  be  revived.  That  poor 
solitary,  fleeing  across  the  Adriatic,  was  brought 
back,  lay  prostrate  before  his  successor,  and  was 
kept  in  the  Castle  of  Fumone  till  he  died  (May,  1296). 
That  he  underwent  harsh  treatment  does  not  seem 
likely  ;  the  Fraticelli  noised  abroad  his  virtues, 
miracles,  and  sufferings  ;  but  only  their  efforts  could 
have  made  him  formidable,  and  Boniface  condemned 


QUARRELS    WITH   EDWARD   I.  397 

them  as  heretics,  who  aimed  at  suppressing  the 
Papacy  itself.  Their  "  reign  of  the  Holy  Ghost," 
foreshadowed  in  commentaries  on  the  Abbot 
Joachim,  would,  it  is  certain,  have  been  a  reign  of 
the  Spiritual  Friars,  the  end  of  Canon  Law,  the 
abolition  of  the  clergy.  But  in  these  wild  schemes 
Coelestine  had  neither  lot  nor  part ;  he  was  a  saint 
of  the  Eastern  type,  to  be  canonised  for  his  simple 
goodness  ;  none  of  these  Fifth  Monarchy  visions,  we 
may  be  sure,  ever  haunted  his  lonely  cell. 

Boniface  dreamt  his  dream,  too  ;  and  that  scarcely 
a  sober  one.  Europe  had  need  of  peace  ;  he  would 
restore  the  truce  of  God,  outraged  by  Edward  and 
Philip  at  war  over  Guienne  ;  by  the  Arragonese  in 
Sicily  ;  by  Albert  of  Austria,  who  would  not 
recognise  the  penniless  Adolphus  of  Nassau  as 
German  Emperor.  In  Sicily,  as  we  do  not  require 
to  learn,  he  failed.  Adolphus,  the  soldier  of  fortune, 
having  won  his  crown  by  large  and  shameful  "capitu- 
lations," which  surrendered  Imperial  rights  in  all 
quarters,  especially  on  the  Rhine,  was  to  be  killed 
not  far  from  Worms  by  Albert  in  1298  ;  so  that  here, 
in  like  manner,  Boniface  suffered  defeat.  His  argu- 
ment with  Edward  I.  demands  more  notice ;  it  led 
up  to  the  decisive  hour  when  Philip  of  France, 
staking  his  kingdom  on  the  issue,  met  and  overthrew 
the  medieval  system,  under  which  no  monarch  could 
be  absolute,  and  Rome  was  the  ultimate  Court  of 
Appeal   between   the  nations  and  their  rulers. 

That  Edward  I.  proved  himself  ablest  of  the 
Eno^)i5^lT_  Kings  is  now  universally  admitted. 
Religious,  brave,  hard,  resolute,  he  meant  to  leave  at 


39^         PHILIP    THE   FAIR   AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

his  death  a  united  Kingdom  in  these  islands  ;  but 
without  war  and  some  chicanery  it  could  not  be  done. 
He  subdued  Wales  ;  what  havoc  he  wrought  in  Scot- 
land needs  no  recalling.  For  his  wars  he  required 
personal  service  from  the  barons,  subsidies  from  the 
clergy,  hateful  to  both.  Edward  annulled  his 
people's  debts  to  the  Jews  and  banished  them. 
But  still  he  wanted  money.  Against  the  Friars 
chiefly,  as  it  is  said — they  had  grown  exceedingly  rich 
— he  passed  the  celebrated  Statute  of  Mortmain, 
which  was  to  hinder  the  absorption  of  real  estate 
into  hands  that  yielded  little  to  the  Crown,  and  that 
only  as  a  gift.  But  he  went  further  still.  He 
-  asserted  the  right  of  taxing  the  clergy  ;  obtained 
''^  from  Nicholas  IV.  a  tenth  of  their  income  (1291)  ; 
and  three  years  afterwards  demanded  one-half 
They  attempted  to  excuse  themselves ;  the  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's,  who  was  to  speak  for  them,  fell  dead 
at  the  King's  feet.  It  was  a  principle  of  Magna 
Charta  that  the  Crown  could  not  raise  taxes  without 
the  consent  of  Parliament ;  the  clergy  had,  in 
addition,  their  own  privilege  ;  but  they  were  forced 
to  submit.  Soon  afterwards,  the  troubles  which  had 
long  been  threatening  in  France  came  to  a  head  ; 
Boniface,  without  an  ally,  wedded  to  his  Canon 
Law,  found  the  two  mightiest  Kings  in  Christendom 
setting  at  naught  clerical  immunities,  laying  what 
he  deemed  sacrilegious  hands  on  spiritual  rights. 
It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  yield.     He  fought. 

Among  the  strong  sayings  of  Gregory  VII.  is  this, 
"  Kings  and  dukes  are  descended  from  men  who, 
with  pride,  robbery,  and  perfidy,  usurped  a  tyrant's 


EDWARD    I.,    KING    OF    ENGLAND. 


400         PHILIP    THE   FAIR    AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

power."  But  the  Church  had  gained  her  vast 
dominions  by  the  bequest  of  her  grateful  children. 
On  those  riches  monarchs  and  nobles  had  ever 
looked  with  a  covetous  eye.  No  sooner  did  a 
bishopric  or  an  abbey  fall  vacant  than  its  lands  and 
goods  were  seized,  to  be  rendered  in  worse  condition 
when  the  new  appointment  was  made.  Much  of  the 
usage  known  as  the  "regale"  in  various  European 
countries  resembled  the  Highland  custom  of  black- 
mail. In  the  Middle  Ages,  that  wonderful  machine 
of  taxation  with  which  we  are  familiar  did  not  exist. 
But  dues,  charges,  impositions  grew  with  the  growth 
of  a  complex  society  ;  and  general  causes  contributed 
to  make  the  King  a  universal,  but  for  many  years  an 
odious,  tax-gatherer.  Nobles,  clergy,  free  towns  alike 
resisted  the  movement.  In  Papal  Bulls,  no  less  than 
in  English  Charters,  the  claim  of  a  monarch  to  lay 
on  fresh  taxes,  was  condemned  under  the  same 
anathema  which  struck  at  piracy  or  at  those  who 
furnished  arms  to  Saracens.  But  especially  was  it  a 
crime  to  invade  the  patrimony  of  the  poor,  with  which 
Church  property  was  identified.  Not  that  the  clergy 
refused  their  gifts  when  the  country  was  in  danger, 
or  the  Crown  in  distress.  They  gave  largely  ;  but  as 
a  benevolence,  as  constrained  by  charity,  on  the 
higher  ground  of  freedom  not  of  legal  necessity. 
Above  all,  they  did  not  wish  to  be  confounded  in  one 
assessment  with  lay  folk,  and  thus  abandoned  to  the 
mercy  of  a  power  which,  in  pursuing  its  own  designs, 
would  show  them  scant  indulgence.  The  history  of 
Europe  proves  that  they  were  not  mistaken.  Church 
property   has    been    confiscated,   again    and    again, 


CLERICIS   LAICOS  4OI 

during  the  last  five  hundred  years,  to  secular  purposes, 
and  on  the  plea  of  State  necessity.  That  it  should 
be  surrendered  without  a  protest  would  be  too 
much  to  expect  from  human  nature,  and  among 
those  who  have  defended  it  as  Divini  juris  are  not 
the  least  noble  of  Christians. 

Undoubtedly  Boniface  had  law  on  his  side — law, 
and  custom,  and  admitted  privilege.  Philip  did  not 
love  war ;  but  he  had  retained  Guienne  by  an 
attorney's  trick  ;  he  saw  an  alliance  formed  against 
him  by  Edward  between  the  Empire,  Flanders, 
Burgundy,  and  Bretagne  ;  money  he  must  procure, 
and  his  ministers  were  apt  in  devices.  All  sprang 
from  the  middle  class.  The  brothers  Marigny  were 
Normans  ;  Nogaret  was  of  Languedoc,  Paterine  by 
descent,  ferociously  antipapal.  Pierre  Flotte  and 
Plasian  were  plebeians  ;  the  bankers  Francesi  had 
migrated  from  F'lorence.  These  were  the  men  that 
imagined  and  collected  the  "  maltote,"  the  evil  excise, 
with  every  circumstance  of  harshness  and  cruelty, 
from  an  afflicted  people.  They  clipped  the  currency 
which  held  been  struck  from  silver-plate  seized  all 
over  his  kingdom  by  Philip,  and  deposited  "  for 
security "  in  the  Louvre,  now  little  else  than  a 
coiner's  den.  Their  bailiffs  were  in  every  house, 
making  a  spoil  of  industry.  The  "  maltote,"  says 
Michelet,  sucked  out  the  marrow  of  the  nation.  But 
at  first  it  spared  the  Estates  of  the  Church.  In  1296 
it  struck  them  in  the  general  assault.  Then  Boniface 
VIII.  published  his  defiance  to  Philip,  the  Bull 
"  Clericis  Laicos,"  thrice  unhappy  in  name  and 
fortunes. 

27 


402        PHILIP    THE   FAIR   AND   POPE    BONIFACE 

Imprudent,  headlong,  but  in  its  main  contention 
founded  on  history,  this  extraordinary  State-paper 
declared  that  the  laity  had  always  been  hostile  to  the 
clergy,  and  were  so  now  as  much  as  ever.  But  they 
possessed  no  jurisdiction  over  the  persons,  no  claims 
on  the  property  of  the  Church,  though  they  had  dared 
to  exact  a  tenth,  nay,  even  a  half,  of  its  income  for 
secular  objects,  and  time-serving  prelates  had  not 
resisted.  Now,  on  no  title  whatsoever  from  henceforth 
should  such  taxes  be  levied  without  permission  of  the 
Holy  See.  Every  layman,  though  King  or  Emperor, 
receiving  these  moneys,  fell  by  that  very  act  under 
anathema ;  every  churchman  paying  them  was 
deposed  from  his  office  ;  Universities,  guilty  of  the 
like  offence,  were  struck  with  interdict. 

Robert  of  Winchelsea,  Langton's  successor  as 
Primate,  shared  Langton's  views.  He  was  at  this 
moment  in  Rome,  and  had  doubtless  urged  Boniface 
to  come  to  the  rescue  of  a  frightened  downtrodden 
clergy,  whom  Edward  I.  would  not  otherwise  regard. 
In  the  Parliament  at  Bury,  this  very  year,  the  clerics 
refused  to  make  a  grant.  Edward  sealed  up  their 
barns.  The  Archbishop  ordered  that  in  every 
cathedral  the  Pope's  interdiction  should  be  read. 
Hereupon  the  Chief  Justice  declared  the  whole 
clergy  outlawed  ;  they  might  be  robbed  or  murdered 
without  redress.  Naturally,  not  a  few  gave  way ;  a 
fifth,  and  then  a  fourth,  of  their  revenue  was  yielded 
up.  But  Archbishop  Robert,  alone,  with  all  the 
prelates  except  Lincoln  against  him,  and  the  Domi- 
nicans preaching  at  Paul's  Cross  on  behalf  of  the 
King,  stood  out,  lost  his  lands,  was  banished   to  a 


ORDINANCES    OF  PHILIP  4O3 

country  parsonage.  War  broke  out  in  Flanders.  It 
was  the  saving  of  the  Archbishop.  At  Westminster 
Edward  relented  and  apologized.  He  confirmed 
the  two  great  Charters  ;  he  did  away  with  illegal 
judgments  that  infringed  them.  Next  year  the 
Primate  excommunicated  those  royal  officers  who 
had  seized  goods  or  persons  belonging  to  the  clergy 
and  all  who  had  violated  Magna  Charta.  The  Church 
came  out  of  this  conflict  exempt,  or,  more  truly,  a 
self-governing  Estate  of  the  Realm.  It  must  be  con- 
sidered as  having  greatly  concurred  towards  the 
establishment  of  that  fundamental  law,  invoked  long 
after  by  the  thirteen  American  Colonies,  "  No  taxa- 
tion without  representation,"  which  is  the  corner-stone 
of  British  freedom. 

In  France  the  issue  was  different.  There  arose  no 
Robert  of  Winchelsea  to  stay  the  King's  proceedings  : 
Magna  Charta  did  not  exist.  By  a  double  Ordinance 
Philip  forbade  his  subjects  to  leave  the  kingdom  or 
send  specie  abroad  without  licence  from  the  Crown, 
and  foreigners  to  enter  or  carry  on  trade.  This  was 
equivalent  to  cutting  off  appeals,  supplies,  petitions  for 
graces,  to  Rome,  which  in  no  small  measure  lived  on 
such  benevolences  or  juridical  fees.  Boniface  could 
not  draw  back.  His  policy,"the  old  Guelf  tradition, 
leaned  on  France ;  he  would  still  be  looking  to 
Charles  of  Valois,  Philip's  brother,  inviting  him  to 
settle  the  dissensions  of  Italy,  to  carve  out  for  him- 
self a  new  Eastern  Empire.  But  the  Canonist  proved 
not  unequal  to  the  occasion.  In  a  second,  devout 
and  politic  letter  addressed  to  the  King,  he  asserted  the 
Church's  freedom,  the  subjection  of  all  persons  under 


404        PHILIP    THE   FAIR    AND   POPE    BONIFACE 

the  moral  law  to  his  Pontifical  judgment ;  he  rebuked 
the  royal  Council;  he  swept  away  as  insane  prohibitions 
which  would  affect  the  clergy  in  their  relations  with 
himself ;  he  charged  on  Philip  the  war  now  raging  ; 
yet,  in  fact,  he  was  open  to  a  reconciliation.  Philip 
replied  with  no  less  subtlety,  with  some  flashes  of 
sarcasm,  a  glance  towards  the  Roman  Emperors  who 
had  granted  their  privileges  to  the  Roman  Bishops, 
and  the  strong  assertion  of  his  own  right  to  subsidies 
from  the  clergy  whom  he  was  protecting.  At  that 
point  the  quarrel  was  interrupted  by  events  nearer 
home,  which  cost  Boniface  a  bitter  payment  in  the 
sequel. 

Perhaps  he  had  tricked  the  Colonna  Cardinals  into 
electing  him  Pope.  At  any  rate,  they  were  Ghibel- 
lines,  masters  of  strong  castles  down  in  the  Campagna, 
plotters,  or  like  to  be  such,  with  the  Imperial,  Arrago- 
nese  faction  in  Sicily.  Two  brothers  were  in  the 
Sacred  College.  It  was  always  possible  that  they 
would  challenge  the  validity  of  an  election  which  had 
taken  place  while  an  undoubted  Pontiff  was  alive. 
For  these  and  other  reasons  now  debatable,  the  rash 
Pope  determined  on  ending  the  Colonnas  root  and 
branch.  It  was  a  desperate  move.  Pretexts,  good  or 
bkd,  were  never  yet  wanting  to  Italian  diplomacy  ; 
and  these  princes,  like  their  neighbours,  played  at 
brigandage,  not  sparing  even  Boniface.  He  asked 
them  to  surrender  their  strongholds.  They  refused. 
Thereupon  he  issued  a  Bull,  depriving  the  two 
Cardinals  as  rebels,  and  marking  their  partisans  with 
the  brand  of  heresy  and  schism.  In  reply  they  denied 
his  right  to  the  Papal  Chair  ;  accused  him  of  circum- 


THE    COLON N AS  '  4O5 

venting   his    saintly   predecessor  ;    and    appealed    to 
a  General  Council. 

But  they  had  no  forces  in  Rome  at  that  time. 
Boniface  answered  by  excommunicating  the  prelates 
in  unmeasured  language,  and — a  thing  unheard 
of — by  confiscating  the  estates  and  interdicting 
the  persons  of  the  whole  family,  sons,  brothers, 
kinsfolk,  to  the  last  generation.  They  were  to  be 
delivered  up  to  his  vengeance,  wherever  found  ;  a 
crusade,  yea,  in  sight  of  the  Lateran,  cries  Dante, 
was  proclaimed  against  the  late  Cardinals.  Their 
fortresses  were  taken  ;  Palestrina  was  got  by  absolute 
treachery,  by  "  long  promises  and  short  perfor- 
mance," as  Guy  of  Monte  Feltro  counselled.  In 
these  events  we  seem  to  be  flung  back  from  the 
close  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  days  when 
Popes  and  prelates  strangled  one  another.  To 
explain,  or  even  understand,  this  horrible  business 
would  be  impossible  to  us.  Whatever  the  Cardinals 
had  done,  their  kindred  were  not  wolves  or  tigers  to 
be  exterminated  ;  yet  every  step  which  Boniface  took 
proves  that  he  thought  them  his  deadly  foes.  No 
wonder  that  people  asked  whether  he  had  not  coerced 
Ccelestine  after  all  ? 

He  demolished  Palestrina,  and  talked  of  sowing  its 
place  with  salt.  The  wretched  Cardinals  knelt  humbly 
before  him  at  Rieti  ;  they  were  given  some  kind  of 
absolution  ;  after  which  they  hid  themselves  till  better 
times.  Their  relatives  fled.  Stephen  appeared  at  the 
P>ench  Court.  Sciarra  was  taken  by  pirates,  ransomed 
by  King  Philip,  and  reserved  for  a  dreadful  fame. 
Others,  fleeing  to  Sicily,  strengthened  the  suspicion 


406        PHILIP    THE  FAIR   AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

against  them.  This  catastrophe  it  was  which  had 
delayed  the  rupture  with  France,  and  now  led  to  the 
suspension  of  "  Clericis  Laicos."  Philip  had  paused 
in  his  attack  on  the  clergy.  Boniface,  "  interpreting  " 
his  own  law,  declared  that  even  Church  fiefs  were 
bound  to  suit  and  service  ;  the  King  might  not  exact, 
but  he  was  free  to  request  benevolences,  and  if  the 
State  were  in  danger,  he  might  lay  equal  taxes  on  all. 
By  way  of  splendid  peace-offering  the  Pope  now 
canonised  St.  Louis  (1297). 

Like  many  impetuous  statesmen,  Boniface  had 
entered  into  a  quarrel  without  seeing  his  way  out. 
Allies  he  had  none.  But  Philip,  or  his  lieutenant, 
Charles  of  Valois,  was  carrying  all  before  him  in 
Flanders  ;  the  wealthy  citizens  revolted  to  him  from 
their  Count ;  and  Edward  I.,  deserted  by  his  barons, 
had  lost  Bruges,  nor  was  in  a  position  to  attempt 
a  fresh  campaign.  Scotland  in  arms  called  him  to  the 
North.  Under  these  circumstances  the  two  Kings  were 
willing  to  accept  truce  and  arbitration  ;  but  the  French 
lawyers  would  not  allow  Boniface  as  Pope  to  exercise 
a  sort  of  masterdom  over  France,  which  by  and  by 
might  be  called  suzerainty.  The  peacemaker  was  to 
be  Gaetani,  the  man,  not  the  Pontiff.  An  agreement 
was  signed  in  Rome  (June,  1297)  equitable  in  its  pro- 
visions, with  restitution  on  both  sides.  Guienne  was 
to  be  English  ;  Edward  was  to  marry  Philip's  sister, 
and  his  son  Philip's  daughter  Isabel,  the  "  she-wolf 
of  France,"  well  known  to  our  history.  Until  all 
differences  were  settled,  Papal  officers  would  ad- 
minster  the  debated  territories.  In  such  terms,  and 
amid  his  Cardinals  at  Rome,  did  Boniface  pronounce 


it-TrtI 


UVwfan.>cJiif  jKItiuc  aailm  pMcuuni  Iviif  qm  .K^iuf  nunicjcuutt  ivjpunf 

:ic:u:tT<"cLini_f-  .\Uvcuial»ii«ur  ci  vicf  mi  qiu  rotuf  mnkjuf  n-raptU'  riil'ihf  xi;rl«t- 

vullu  tcrir  .tiimlAuylimwr ^alluf  i.iqU  niltu'rina  .utfno-  fvtnlatf  coliimLu  ifo  nmc 

.4bir  rAmu  jxrjtaeolmc  irimtfrvjmiiulrjmmfiani?  ciufcamaPciitAinjtlorilhimn 

qiuvtni  .\ffi£cin€.UUnlontaim  ^'imfTAw  qifc  otmuic  non  \v(ni$  contn  uiihiin  lun 

<uluA!Uc;:\Ur::  — . 


-fpA 


luiulciim  mtni(h  f»nnitu ivjiwm  gnnmo  laaum^  :- 


Xh 


POPE    BONIFACE    VIII. 

{A  Satirical  Portrait  from  foachim's  ^^  Pope  Book.'") 


408         PHILIP    THE    FAIR.  AND   POPE   BONIFACE 

the  final  award.  He  was  acting  on  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  the  Holy  See  ;  but  he  published  the  judg- 
ment as  Pope  in  the  form  of  a  Bull,  and  thus  broke 
his  solemn  pledge  to  arbitrate  as  a  private  person. 
This  man  never  could  forget  that  he  had  been  a 
lawyer. 

With  Edward  I.  his  disputes,  carried  on  in  the 
haughtiest  language,  had  been  successful,  although 
from  Edward's  accession  the  feudal  tribute  of  a  thou- 
sand marks  to  Rome  was  no  longer  paid.  The  Scots, 
in  extremity,  appealed  to  him  now,  maintaining  that 
Scotland  was  a  fief  of  Rome  and  therefore  could 
not  be  subject  to  the  Crown  of  England — which 
proves  for  the  last  time  that  the  suzerainty  of  the 
Pope,  a  juridical  fiction  in  this  case,  implied  real 
independence  and  was  far  from  dishonourable  when 
countries  at  a  distance,  like  Scotland  or  Denmark, 
gloried  in  it.  The  Pope  accepted  their  view  ; 
laid  his  imperious  commands  on  Edward  to  release 
certain  Scottish  prelates  ;  denied  the  feudal  claims  of 
England ;  and  summoned  the  King  by  his  am- 
bassadors to  appear  in  the  Curia.  Robert  of  Win- 
chelsea  did  not  deliver  this  challenging  document  till 
some  time  after  it  reached  him  ;  the  great  Jubilee 
came  between  ;  and  Edward  held  Scotland  in  his 
eagle's  claws. 


XXV 


DANTE  S   VISION 


■ANAGNI — END   OF   THE   MIDDLE 
AGE 


(I  300-1  303) 


This  Jubilee,  first  of  its  kind,  to  mark  the  passing, 
to  welcome  the  new  century,  was  very  splendid, 
famous,  and  triumphant,  but  it  need  not  detain  us. 
Dante  saw  it,  among  the  thousands  of  pilgrims  who 
passed  to  the  Apostle's  shrine  over  the  bridge  of  St. 
Angelo ;  it  is  the  date  which  he  assigns  to  his  journe)' 
through  the  Kingdoms  of  the  Invisible  World  ;  and 
that  perhaps  gives  its  true  significance.  The  great 
Jubilee  was  a  vision  and  a  farewell.  The  whole 
Middle  Ages  were  passing.  Princes  and  poets,  friars, 
canonists,  lawyers,  the  Pope  himself,  bore  witness  to  a 
change  from  sacerdotal  to  secular  supremacy,  from 
the  hieratic  to  the  modern  or  absolute  State.  One 
moment  suspended,  the  contest  with  Philip  was 
speedily  -resumed,  and  went  on  to  its  fatal  issue. 

Edward  and  his  Parliament  at  Lincoln  cast  aside 

the  Pope's  claim  to  interfere  with  Scotland.     Charles 

409 


■J 


410  DANTE  S    VISION — ANAGNI 

of  Valois,  descending  upon  Italy  as  an  avowed 
champion  of  the  Holy  See,  permitted  the  Neri 
faction  to  rage  in  Florence,  made  Dante  a  Ghibelline, 
and  roused  the  country  to  strong  detestation  of  himself 
and  the  Pontiff  who  had  called  him  across  the  Alps. 
With  the  Fraticelli  Boniface  had  always  been  at  war. 
He  now,  by  an  inconceivable  oversight,  took  from  the 
Franciscans  for  his  own  use  forty  thousand  ducats 
which  they  had  left  in  his  hands,  thereby  alienating 
his  most  devoted  followers,  of  whom  he  would  soon 
be  in  need  as  never  before.  He  abandoned  the 
Scots  ;  but  he  did  not  secure  the  assistance  of  Kinsf 
Edward.  In  earlier  days,  if  the  Pope  was  at  enmity 
with  one  sovereign  he  could  rely  upon  another  to 
take  up  his  quarrel.  Not  so  now  ;  by  a  succession  of 
arrogant,  though  not  always  ill-meant  practices,  Boni- 
face had  lost  every  friend  who  might  have  come 
beween  him  and  the  least  scrupulous  monarch  that 
ever  sat  on  the  throne  of  France. 

We  shall  never  know  the  whole  story  ;  it  is  obscure 
and  half-drowned  in  picturesque  falsehoods,  told  at  the 
time  or  invented  not  long  after.  During  the  Jubilee, 
as  rumour  went,  Boniface  appeared  on  one  day  in  the 
Papal  vestments,  on  the  next  in  those  of  the  Emperor. 
Before  him  were  carried  two  swords  and  the  golden 
orb  ;  he  called  himself  successor  of  Peter  and  Charle- 
magne, the  universal  monarch.  Again,  he  sent  into 
France  his  Bull  of  Arbitration,  sealed  in  the  Pope's 
name ;  Robert  of  Artois  flung  it  into  the  fire  while 
Philip  looked  on.  These  are  incredible  fictions. 
But  there  were  unpleasant  facts.  Robert,  in  spite  of 
censures,  held  half  the  city  of  Cambrai   against  its 


VIOLENT  MEASURES  4I  I 

Archbishop.  The  King  sequestrated  Laon,  because 
its  Bishop  had  gone  to  Rome.  He  would  not  give 
back  its  full  estates  to  the  Church  of  Rheims.  He 
had  opened  his  palace  to  the  Colonna  exiles.  On  the 
other  hand,  at  Narbonne,  conquered  long  ago  from 
the  Albigenses,  Viscount  and  Archbishop  were  dis- 
puting over  the  feudal  homage.  Saisset,  Bishop  of 
Pamiers,  despatched  by  the  Pope  on  a  mission  to 
King  Philip,  acquitted  himself  so  insolently  that  on 
returning  to  his  diocese  he  was  arrested  by  the  royal 
order,  brought  to  Senlis  and  put  in  custody  of  his 
Metropolitan.  To  imprison  a  Papal  Legate  was  the 
height  of  audacity.  If  it  be  true  that  Peter  Flotte, 
arriving  in  Rome,  defended  the  step  in  such  language 
as  we  find  attributed  to  him,  we  cannot  feel  surprise 
at  the  Pope's  indignation.  On  one  single  day  he  put 
forth,  in  rapid  succession,  letter  upon  letter,  demand- 
ing that  Saisset  should  be  sent  immediately  to  Rome  ; 
enacting  again  the  Bull  "  Clericis  Laicos "  ;  citing 
Bishops,  Archbishops,  and  the  leading  French  clergy 
to  appear  in  Curia  on  next  All  Saints'  Day,  then  and 
there  "  to  take  counsel  touching  the  excesses,  crimes, 
and  acts  of  violence  committed  by  the  King  of  France 
and  his  officers,"  on  the  Church  of  God.  These  four 
documents  appeared  in  December,  1301.  Never,  in 
any  previous  controversy,  had  the  like  of  them  been 
published  on  French  soil.  What  else  could  they  be 
aiming  at,  men  argued,  than  to  stir  up  civil  war  and 
depose  the  King  ? 

But  Nogaret,  Plotte,  and  the  lawyers,  did  not  wait 
until  Boniface  had  struck  the'  blow.  They  scattered 
far  and  wide  an  insolent  brief  paper  in  which   the- 


41 


DANTE  S    VISION — A NA GN/ 


Pope  was  brought  in  saying  to  Philip,  "  We  do  you  to 
wit  that  you  are  subject  to  us  in  temporals  as  in 
spirituals.  Your  collations  to  benefices  are  null  and 
void.  All  who  disbelieve  us  are  heretics."  Philip,  in 
a    genuine   counterblast,    replied    immediately    "  To 


J>iniJP   TIIK    FAIR,    KINO    OF    FRANCE. 


Boniface,  who  calls  himself  Pope,  little  or  no  greeting. 
~We  do  your  Fatuity  to  wit  that  in  temporals  we  are 
subject  to  no  man.  We  will  uphold  the  collations  we 
have  made.  Those  who  think  otherwise  are  out  of 
their  minds."  Such  were  the  amenities  which  ushered 
in  that  authentic  and  sufficiently  dignified  letter,  the 


PAPAL   BRIEF  PUBLICLY  BURNT  4I3 

"  Ausculta  Fill."  "  Let  no  one  persuade  you,"  said 
the  Pope,  "  that  you  are  not  subject  to  the  chief  of  the 
heavenly  Hierarchy."  What  did  this  mean  ?  Spiritual 
jurisdiction,  acting  with  spiritual  weapons?  Or  a 
feudal  supremacy,  backed  up  by  the  arms  of  this 
world  ?^  There  lay  the  point  of  antagonism.  Boniface 
went  on  to  tell  Philip  of  his  injustice  and  oppressions, 
which  had  lost  him  the  people's  love  ;  he  repeated,  in 
set  terms,  th^t-na  layman  had  any  power  over  an 
ecclesiastic  ;  and  he  still  summoned  the  French  clergy 
to  his  presence.  Philip's  answer  was  emphatic.  On 
January  26,  1302,  he  had  this  solemn  document 
publicly  burnt  before  his  eyes,  all  Paris  crowding  to 
see  the  thing  done,  and  its  execution  announced  by 
sound  of  trumpet.  In  April  he  called  the  States- 
General,  nobles,  clergy,  burgesses.  They  met  in  Notre 
Dame.  The  King  was  appealing  from  the  Pope  to 
the  nation. 

In  a  skilful  address  Peter  P'lotte  charged  Boniface 
with  maintaining  that  the  King  held  France,  not  from 
God  but  from  the  Holy  See.  It  was  a  question  of 
feudal  sovereignty.  So  the  nobles  understood  ;  so  the 
Third  Estate,  which  seems  to  have  cherished  anti- 
papal  sentiments.  The  clergy  knew  better  but  held 
their  peace.  Remonstrances  were  drawn  up  in 
French  and  Latin,  signed,  and  sent  to  the  Cardinals, 
to  the  Pope  himself,  all  on  the  King's  side,  though  in 
varying  tones.  Boniface  rebuked  the  clergy  for  their 
cowardice,  reviled  Peter  P'lotte  and  branded  his 
doctrine  as  Manichctan  ;  for  such  offences  he  might 
depose  Philip  as  if  he  were  a  groom — had  not  his 
predecessors   taken   their  crowns   from  three  French 


y 


414  D  ante's    vision — AN  AG  N I 

Kings  ?     The  prelates  must  appear  at  his  bidding  or 

they  would  be  deprived.    Thus  he  spoke  in  Consistory. 

The     States-General     had    met    in    April,     1302. 

Almost  immediately  after,  Flanders  was  up  in  arms 

against  Philip,  the  most  intolerable  of  oppressors  ;  and 

on  July  nth  a  company  of  "weavers  and  fullers,"  as 

Villani    exclaims,    beat    and    scattered    the    choicest 

French  chivalry  at  Courtrai.     Artois  was  killed,  with 

Chatillon,  Brabant,  a  crowd  of  knights  whose  golden 

spurs  became  a  spoil.     Peter  Flotte  was  left  dead  on 

the  field.     This  severe  blow  compelled  Philip  to  make 

\   peace  with  England  ;  but  it  did  not  bring  him  to  his 

1  knees    before   the    Pope.      All    Saints'    Day  arrived. 

y  Forty-five  French  bishops  and  abbots  attended   the 

'  meeting  in    Rome.      On    November    i8th,   Boniface, 

who  had  all  along  denied  the  interpretation   put  on 

his  words  by  the  lawyers,  published  the  Bull  "  Unam 

Sanctam,"  in  which  he  insisted  that  there  were  two 

swords    at   the    Church's   disposal  ;    that   the    clergy 

wielded  the  sword  of  the  spirit  ;   but  that  kings  and 

soldiers  must  wield  the  sword  of  the   flesh  at  their 

^bidding-;  that  the  temporal  order  must  be  judged  by 

the   spiritual  ;    and   that   every   human  creature   was 

subject   to  the  Roman   Pontiff.      This  language  was 

not  new  ;  it  had  been  takenjrom  Innocent  III.     But 

Philip's  counsellors,  dominated  by  Nogaret,  and  with 

the  Colon nas  to   urge  them  on,  had   resolved   on   a 

definite    and    perhaps    irrevocable    break    with    the 

Papacy. 

Both  sides  prepared  for  the  last  struggle.  Philip 
made  peace  with  England  ;  endeavoured  to  conciliate 
his   own    people   by  concessions    and  fair  speeches  ; 


APPEAL    TO    GENERAL    COUNCIL  415 

confiscated  the  goods  of  those  Bishops  who  had  gone 
to  Rome  ;  and  drew  the  nation  together  in  a  common 
bond.  The  Pope,  reluctant  but  compelled,  was 
making  terms  with  Albert  of  Austria,  whom,  in 
May,  1303,  he  recognised  as  German  Emperor.  He 
consented  to  the  separation  of  Sicily  from  Naples. 
To  Philip  himself  he  sent  fourteen  articles,  fierce  and 
peremptory,  by  Cardinal  Lemoinne,  which  the  King 
answered,  not  without  evasion.  In  May  he  was  ex- 
communicated, three  months'  grace  being  allowed  for 
submission.  Again  the  States-General  were  convoked 
in  the  Louvre,  June  13,  1303,  "  to  take  counsel  on  the 
crimes  and  disabilities  of  Benedict  Gaetani,  calling  him- 
self Pope  Boniface  VIII."  In  that  assembly,  Plasian, 
the  royal  Attorney-General,  produced  his  charges  ;  he 
swore  on  the  Gospels  that  Gaetani  was  a  heretic, 
infidel,  notorious  evil-liver,  who  had  a  familiar  spirit, 
and  had  committed  every  possible  crime.  His 
repeated  attacks  on  the  King  of  France  showed  an 
implacable  hatred  towards  their  realm  and  nation. 
All  which  could  and  would  be  proved  by  this  same 
William  of  Plasian  at  a  General  Council.  Philip 
assented  to  the  requisitions  made  ;  he  appealed  on  his 
own  behalf  to  a  Council  and  the  next  lawful  Pope. 
The  clergy  sat  silent.  But  they  were  compelled  to 
do  more.  After  the  King  had  signed  the  document, 
five  Archbishops,  twenty-one  Bishops,  eleven  of  the 
greater  Abbots,  among  them  Cluny,  Premontre, 
Citeaux,  St.  Victor,  and  the  Visitors  of  the  Temple 
and  the  Hospital  Knights,  subscribed  to  these 
monstrous  fictions,  in  which  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
not  a  man  there  believed. 


41 6  D ante's    vision — ANAGNI 

Still  the  lawyers  were  not  satisfied.  King,  nobles^ 
clergy,  had  all  agreed  not  only  to  promote  the  hold- 
ing of  a  Council,  but  to  suffer  no  interdict  within  the 
bounds  of  France,  and  to  disregard  every  mandate 
from  Rome.  The  appeal  was  sent  out  to  every 
chapter,  convent,  and  religious  house,  to  be  signed  by 
clerics  and  friars.  Seven  hundred  acts  of  adhesion 
were  thus  obtained.  Franciscans,  Dominicans, 
military  Orders, — including  one  of  the  doomed 
Templars, — all  said  ay  at  the  King's  behest.  The 
University  of  Paris  did  not  hold  out  ;  it  was  earnest 
and  loud  in  the  same  cause.  "  The  unanimous  voice 
of  the  national  conscience,"  says  a  German  historian, 
had  "  grown  strong  against  Papal  arrogance."  But 
it  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  the  clergy,  taxed  and 
galled  by  their  opponents,  Nogaret,  Plasian,  and  the 
other  lawyers,  signed  at  the  bidding  of  conscience. 
They  may  not  have  loved  Boniface  ;  they  had  every 
reason  to  fear  King  Philip.  Their  unbroken  silence 
in  the  States-General  is  the  best  explanation  of  what 
they  felt  but  dared  not  say.  In  a  like  dilemma  the 
Convocation  of  Canterbury,  challenged  by  Henry 
VIII.,  took  refuge  in  the  same  silence  and  allowed 
the  title  of  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church  to  pass. 
/  We  cannot  describe  such  cowardly  surrenders  as  acts 
of  the  national  conscience. 

Boniface  had  gone  out  to  Anagni.  It  was  told  him 
what  had  been  done  at  the  Louvre.  He  called  his 
Cardinals  about  him  ;  brushed  aside  with  infinite  scorn 
the  accusation  of  heresy, — "  We  were  sound  Catholics 
as  long  as  we  favoured  King  Philip,"  he  said  with  a 
grim  smile — and  fixed  on  Stephen  Colonna  as  the  man 


THE   STORM  BREAKS  41/ 

who  had  raised  this  tempest.  He  suspended  through- 
out France  the  right  of  election  to  benefices ;  he 
deprived  the  Universities  of  their  teaching  privileges. 
Then,  from  the  exalted  throne  of  St.  Peter,  he  struck 
Philip  with  his  two-edged  sword.  He  was  excom- 
municate ;  his  people  were  forbidden  to  obey  him  ; 
the  clergy  must  take  no  preferment  from  his  hand  ; 
all  oaths  sworn  to  him  were  abrogated,  and  leagues  in 
which  he  had  a  share  were  dissolved.  On  September 
8th  next  ensuing,  he  would  cease  to  be  King  of 
France. 

In  this  lightning-like  manner  did  the  spiritual  sword 
glance  and  gleam  round  Philip's  head.  But  where 
was  the  sword  of  flesh?  Boniface,  without  even  a 
household  guard,  was  weak  and  defenceless.  He 
might  have  been  aware  that  Philip's  messengers,  cit- 
ing him  to  the  General  Council,  were  on  the  way  to 
Anagni.  We  cannot  tell.  All  we  know  is  that  the 
Paterine,  Nogaret,  with  Sciarra  Colonna  and  one  of 
the  Francesi  bankers,  had  arrived  near  Siena  ;  that 
they  were  buying  up  cut-throat  barons  in  Romagna  ; 
and  that  much  intrigue  was  rife,  close  to  the  Pope's 
person.  The  French  envoys  bought  their  cut-throats 
and  came  on.  Nogaret  had  received  from  Philip  a 
sign-manual  which  gave  him  unlimited  powers.  What 
to  do?  Evidently  to  prevent  the  execution  of  a 
Bull  which  would  leave  Philip  at  the  mercy  of  his 
enemies.  September  7th  had  arrived  ;  not  a  moment 
was  to  be  lost. 

On  that  black  and  memorable  day,  Boniface  was 
seated  with  his  Cardinals,  feeling  how  near  the  crisis 
had  drawn,  when   they  heard  the  narrow  streets  of 


41  8  DANTE'S    VISION — ANAGNI 

Anagni  resounding  with  shouts,  hoofs  clattering,  and 
three  hundred  horse  rushing  on  as  to  an  assault. 
*'  Death  to  the  Pope !  life  to  the  King  ! "  That  was 
the  battle  cry  which  told  them  what  had  happened. 
Sciarra  was  there,  the  banner  of  the  fleur  de  lys  ov^er 
him;  and  in  his  train  the  kinsfolk- of  men  whom 
Boniface  had  banished  or  cast  into  prison.  The  city 
bell  rang  ;  the  people  assembled  ;  they  found  them- 
selves under  command  of  Arnulf,  a  Ghibelline,  and 
were  led  against  the  Pope.  His  palace  was  assaulted  ; 
likewise  that  of  his  nephew  and  the  Cardinals  loyal  to 
him.  But  all  the  Cardinals  fled  through  subterranean 
passages,  and  only  Boniface  held  out.  He  demanded 
a  truce.  Eight  hours  w^ere  given.  On  what  terms 
must  he  surrender?  "Restore  the  Colonnas  to  their 
rank  and  possessions  ;  abdicate  ;  and  yield  yourself  to 
Sciarra."  He  refused  with  sobs.  The  assault  began 
once  more  ;  Sciarra  set  the  neighbouring  Church 
gates  on  fire  ;  the  Pope's  nephew  surrendered,  making 
terms  for  himself  and  his  family,  and  left  Boniface  to 
make  his  own. 

In  this  hour  the  sense  of  his  sacred  office  did  not 
desert  him.  Arraying  himself  in  stole  and  crown, 
bearing  the  cross  keys,  he  sat  in  the  Papal  Chair  to 
await  these  French  ambassadors.  They  approached 
and  did  no  homage.  With  insult  they  told  him  he 
must  abdicate.  "  Here  is  my  neck,"  said  the  daunt- 
less old  man.  Nogaret  threatened  him  with  the 
Council ;  Boniface  cast  in  his  teeth  the  name  of 
Paterine.  But  Sciarra,  like  the  ruffian  he  was,  would 
have  killed  the  Pope  with  his  own  hands,  had  not  the 
less  brutal  Frenchman  interposed.     It  is  said  that  he 


LAST  HOURS    OF  BONIFACE  419 

Struck  Boniface  on  the  cheek  with  his  iron  gauntlet. 

Then  they  set  him  on  a  restive  horse,  paraded  him 

about  the  streets,  and  plundered  his  treasures.     At 

length,  after  a  passion  which  pasted  three  days,  the  / 

people    of   Anagni"  came    to    his   relief,   when    the 

soldiers  were  gone.     "  Good  people,"  he  said,  "  give  -^-^ 

me  a    morsel   of  bread    and  a   cup  of  wine ;    I   am 

dying  of  hunger."     He  had  yielded  nothing  ;  but  in 

his  desolate  palace,  which  was  stripped  bare  of  all  it 

contained — infinite  riches,  as  the  tale  went — he  found 

no  one  except  the  crowd  of  peasants  on  whom   to 

bestow  absolution. 

He  was  now  taken  by  the  Orsini  with  a  mounted 
squadron  back  to  Rome.  But  he  remained  a  prisoner. 
The  Colonnas  he  would  not  restore  to  the  Sacred 
College.  His  spirit  was  yet,  perhaps,  unbroken. 
Calumny  has  pursued  him  to  the  end,  telling  how  he 
died  of  rage  or  poison,  or  beat  out  his  brains  against 
the  wall.  His  last  day  in  this  world  was  October  ii, 
1303.  When  his  body  was  exhumed  at  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  1605,  it  was  still  entire, 
and  no  marks  of  violence  could  be  seen  upon  it.  We 
may  conclude  that  his  death  was  more  tranquil  than 
his  life,  and  that  his  breath  failed  before  his  reason. 
Nor  can  we  trust  the  furious  invectives  of  Dante,  who 
calls  this  unwise,  but  energetic  and  apparently  sincere 
spirit,  "  the  prince  of  the  new  Pharisees,"  and  makes 
St.  Peter  himself  pronounce  his  doom  in  heaven. 

But  this  was  true,  which  the  poet  sings  in  tones  of 
pity  and  horror,  that  Philip,  King  of  France,  had 
inflicted  a  second  time  the  Passion  of  Christ  on  His 
Vicar.     France,  which  once  gave  its  Charlemagne  as 


420  DANTE  S    VISION — ANAGNI 

a  guardian  to  the  Apostolic  See,  and  took  the  Imperial 
Roman  crown  for  its  reward,  was  now  transformed  to 
a  secular  power,  which  in  the  Papacy  beheld  no  more 
the  Father  and  Judge  of  Christendom.  Europe  cried 
out  at  the  sacrilege — the  crucifixion  between  two 
thieves — the  second  Pilate.  But  one  era  had  closed  ; 
another  was  opening.  With  Philip  of  France  the 
layman  began  to  rule  over  the  clergy  ;  Roman  Law 
had  conquered  in  temporals  the  Roman  Pontiff ;  our 
eyes  are  henceforth  set  towards  the  Renaissance, 
though  it  tarries  in  its  coming  ;  we  have  bidden  fare- 
well to  the  Middle  Age. 


EPILOGUE 


For  that  shameful  outrage  at  Anagni,  as  the 
sequel  informs  us,  no  one  was  ever  brought  to  account. 
Philip,  who  had  pulled  down  the  living  Boniface  from 
his  seat,  pursued  him  though  dead  with  redoubled 
animosity.  Still  he  would  insist  that  a  General 
Council  should  try,  convict,  and  degrade  the  new 
Formosus.  He  was  master  now.  Benedict  XI.,  a 
mild  Dominican,  who  had  been  consenting  neither  to 
the  violence  of  the  Pope  nor  to  the  treachery  of  his 
enemies,  did  indeed  release  from  censure  the  King  as 
well  as  the  French  people.  He  explained  away  the 
infelicitous  words  of  "  Clericis  Laicos  "  from  which  all 
subsequent  troubles  might  seem  to  have  arisen.  But 
he  would  assemble  no  Council  to  try  a  dead  Pope. 
In  self-defence  he  excommunicated  Nogaret  and 
some  chief  culprits  along  with  him.  Yet  he  restored 
the  Colonna  Cardinals  to  their  rank  as  before.  All 
would  not  suffice.  Within  the  year  he  was  himself  a 
corpse,  poisoned,  said  the  common  talk,  by  Philip, 
the  Ghibellines,  or  ^^fUlQ)^'^"  Orsini. 

x\n    interregnum    of    nme    months    followed.     It 

came  to  an  end  after  Philip,  in  the  Forest  of  St.  Jean 

422 


CLEMENT    V.  423 

d'Angely,  had  entered  into  a  secret  compact  with 
Bertrand  de  Goth,  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux.  The 
terms  were  known  afterwards,  all  but  one,  which  is 
conjectured  to  have  been  the  destruction  of  the 
Templars.  If  he  were  chosen  as  Pope,  the  Gascon 
Archbishop  undertook  to  reconcile  the  King  and  his 
partisans  with  the  Church  in  the  fullest  manner  ;  to 
condemn  Boniface  ;  to  give  the  Colonnas  their  castles 
and  lands  again.  One  farther  condition,  not  exacted 
but  fulfilled,  of  more  consequence  than  all  the  rest, 
was  that  Clement  V.  shoujd  jiever  set  foot  in  Rome^ 
He  was  elected  ;  crowned  at  Lyons  ;  and  surrounded 
himself  with  a  Court  of  French  Cardinals.  In  1306 
he  abrogated  the  Bull  "  Clericis  Laicos  "  altogether. 
He  interpreted  the  Bull,  "  Unam  Sanctam,"  in  a 
spiritual  and  non-feudal  sense.  He  released  Edward 
I.  from  his  oaths  to  keep  the  Charters.  He  excom- 
municated Robert  Bruce.  He  consented  to  hold  a 
Council  at  Viennc,  where  he  would  take  all  the 
charges  made  by  Nogaret  against  his  deceased  pre- 
decessor. He  saw  the  Templars  perish.  This  was 
the  Pope  who  in  1309  took  up  his  abode  at  Avignon, 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhone,  and  began  the  seventy 
years  of  Babylonish  captivity.  With  his  accession 
the  Papacy  had  fallen  a  prisoner  into  the  hands  of 
France. 

At  Vienne,  nevertheless,  Philip  was,  so  to  speak, 
nonsuited  ;  Boniface  escaped  condemnation.  Within 
the  term  of  a  natural  life,  the  house  of  Capet  had 
lost  its  male  heirs,  struck  by  some  mysterious 
disaster.  The  long  war  of  a  hundred  years  between 
France   and    England    broke   out.      And    a   schism, 


424  EPILOGUE 

which  lasted  down  to  the  Council  of  Constance  in 
141 5,   set    up    French   against    Italian    Popes,  scan- 
dalised all.  Chns^tians7led  to  Wycllffite~-heresies,  to 
Lollard  risings,  to  the  deposition  of  three  reigning 
Pontiffs.     From    Avignon  to  Constance,   from  Con- 
stance to  Basle,  from  Basle  to  Luther  at  the  Diet  of 
{\  0'        Worms,  we  trace  an  ever- widening^  path,  at  the  end 
of  which  appears  the^Reformation.    ^ 
I         It  is  wonderful  how  many  large  movements  and 
long-standing  institutions   came  to    an    end    in   the 
second    half    of    the     thirteenth    century.        With 
Frederick   IL,  as   we   have  seen,   the  Holy  Roman 
'     Empire  ceased  to  be  either  Holy  or  Roman  ;  it  was 
henceforth  a  name  attached  to  some  German  Prince, 
bold  and  edifying  like    Rudolph    of  Hapsburg,  de- 
graded and  despised  like  Louis  of  Bavaria.     Rome 
^tself  becomes  a  blank  in  the  world's  history — except 
^    during  Rienzi's  brief  masquerade — for  a  hundred  and 
twenty   years.     With    Conradin    on    the    scaffold    at 
•    Naples  the  Pope's  deposing  power  may  be  said  to 
have  expired.     Never  again  did    the    Holy   See^   in 
effect,  transfer  crowns   or  take   them  away,  though 
j^W /until    the   seventeenth   century   forms  implying  this 
^^  Q^^upreme   act  of  jurisdiction    lingered  in  the  Roman 
*t>f^ (^'  Courts,  or  were  gravely  set  down  by  canonists  and 
K_)J^  <'  '^^theologians.      The   enthusiasm,   purity,   and    charm 
K^'^      which  had  shed  their  lustre  on  St.  Francis,  faded  or 
were   transmuted    into   less    delightful   visions    long 
before   the   century   closed.       His   brethren,    as   the 
Cluniacs,    Cistercians,    Templars,    and    many    more, 
gave  point  to  the  terrible  saying  of  Lord    Falkland, 
"  Religion    brought   forth   riches,   and    the   daughter 


A    TASK  FULFILLED  425 

slew  the  mother."  Those  among  them  who  con- 
quered this  temptation  went  often  to  the  other 
extreme  ;  they  became  wild  mystics  with  the  Fra- 
ticelli,  schismatics  with  Michael  da  Cesena,  and  by 
a  singular  course  of  events,  Erastian  or  Ca^sarean  with 
their  English  philosopher,  William  of  Occam. 

And  the  Crusades  were  done  ;  Palestine  was  aban-f 
doned  to  the  Turks,  while  Spain  was  wrested  from 
the  Moors.  Other  signs  of  an  approaching  con- 
summation of  all  things  might  be  observed.  The 
Schoolmen  drew  out  a  perfect  theory  of  medieval  life, 
thought,  government.  The  architects  enshrined  it 
in  cathedrals  erected  and  adorned  by  the  people. 
Dante  immortalised  it  in  his  superhuman  Epic,  or 
Pilgrim's  Progress  from  this  world  to  the  world  to 
come.  This  was  the  swan  song  of  that  astonishing 
age,  without  example  before  or  since,  when  the 
priesthood  ruled  over  Europe  with  crozier  and 
sceptre,  sword  and  pen,  with  Bible,  Canon  Law,  and 
prophetic  oracles,  sanctioned  by  penalties  from  which 
neither  individual  nor  nation  could  escape.  It  was 
beyond  question  a  Theocracy.  The  Pontifex  Maxi- 
mus.  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords,  judged  all 
men  and  was  judged  of  none. 

His  temporal  power,  in  this  magnificent  application 
of  the  word,  has  passed  away.  But  not  until  it  had 
fulfilled  the  task  allotted  to  it  The  Barbarians,  free 
men  but  destitute  of  culture,  had  been  brought  under 
the  creative  influence  of  a  humane  religion  ;  they  had 
been  taught  the  elements  of  Greek  and  Latin  civilisa- 
tion ;  and  equality  before  the  law,  which  was  a  princi- 
ple at  once  Christian  and  Roman,  had  begun  to  be 


426  EPILOGUE 

established  as  the  foundation  of  modern  Hberty.  To 
the  monks  who  made  the  wilderness  blossom  like  the 
rose,  had  succeeded  industrial  and  republican  cities — 
the  League  of  Lombardy,  the  Hansa  towns,  Venice, 
Florence,  Amalfi,  Genoa,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Antwerp, 
London.  All  over  Europe  learning  was  held  in 
honour  ;  the  Universities  were  centres  of  intellectual 
freedom.  Slaves  had  become  serfs  ;  serfs  had  been 
largely  emancipated.  War  itself  put  on  the  graces 
of  chivalry.  There  was  a  Christendom,  the  ideals 
at  least  of  which  were  peace,  brotherhood,  holiness. 
From  Councils  provincial  or  CEcumenical  emerged 
a  sense  of  the  nation's  unity,  and  in  due  time 
a  Law  of  Nations.  Every  church  gave  shelter  to 
innocence,  if  sometimes  also  to  guilt.  Hospitals, 
almshouses,  cloisters  opened  their  gates  to  the  sick, 
the  aged,  the  outcast.  Talent,  without  regard  to 
birth,  might  aspire,  and  not  seldom  attain,  to  the 
highest  seats  in  a  spiritual  order  which  held  the 
temporal  in  check  and  thus  made  for  independence. 
I  Looked  at  from  above,  the  Church  was  a  Theocracy  ; 
j  seen  from  below,  it  was  a  Democracy.  While  it 
leaned  on  the  people,  its  triumph  was  assured  ;  when 
\/it  submitted  to  the  feudal  system,  it  courted  disaster. 
Then  the  royal  authority  took  away  its  rod  of 
dominion  ;  the  King  became  Pope ;  the  Pontifex 
Maximus  retired  into  the  holy  place  before  him. 

Crimes,  abuses,  usurpations,  scandals,  and  a  secret 
change  about  religion  in  the  thoughts  of  men,  will 
account  for  this  latter-day  revolution.  But  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  how  Europe  could  have  survived 
from  the  Fall  of  the   Empire  to   modern  times,  had 


O    4 

§  J 

<     : 


428 


EPILOGUE 


there  been  no' central,  supreme,  and  acknowledged 
power  like  the  Papacy,  guardian  at  once  of  faith, 
learning,  law,  civilisation.  That  it  always  rose  to  the 
height  of  that  great  enterprise  will  not  be  maintained 
by  the  historian  ;  but  its  benefits  outnumbered  by 
far  its  abuses  ;  and  the  glory  is  not  dim  which  hangs 
round  its  memory,  when  we  call  to  mind  that  it  con- 
secrated the  beginnings  of  a  peaceful.  Christian 
Europe,  and  watched  beside  the  springs  of  art, 
science,  industry,  order,  and  freedom.  These  are  its 
claims  to  our  admiration  and  our  gratitude.  '  Rome  is 
the  meeting-place  of  all  history  ;  the  Papal  succession, 
oldest  and  newest  in  Europe,  filling  the  space  from 
Caisar  and  Constantine  to  this  democratic  world  of 
the  twentieth   century,   binds  all  ages  into  one  and 

^    looks  out  towards  a  distant  future  in  many  Continents. 

-^  J  o-Its  chronicle  has  been  a  tragedy  and  a  romance  ; 
-^jT^f^a^^s  the  millions  of  its  faithful  believe,  a  prophecy 

^'"^  and  a  fulfilment.  In  whatever  light  we  regard  it,  one 
stage  is  marked,  and  a  turning-point  fixed,  when  we 
stand  on  the  broken  bridge  of  x\vignon  to  contem- 
plate that  vast  Palace  of  the  Popes,  now  converted 
into  French  barracks,  which  was  for  well-nigh  seventy 
years  their  gilded  prison. 


'/'. 
% 


LIST    OF   THE    ROMAN    PONTIFFS. 

(As  in  the   Registers  of  the  Roman  Church.) 
ST.    PETER,    PRINCE   OF   THE   APOSTLES,  41-65-67. 


^  Linus. 

A.D.  67 

Anastasius  I.  a.d,  398 

Vitalian.         a.l 

.  657 

/Cletus. 

79 

Innocent  I. 

402 

Deusdedit  IL 

672 

VClement  L 
Evaristus. 

91 

Zosimus. 

417 

Donus  I. 

676 

100 

Boniface  I. 

418 

Agatho. 

678 

Alexander  I. 

109 

Coelestine  I. 

422 

Leo  IL 

682 

/  Sixtus  L 

119 

Sixtus  III. 

432 

Benedict  II. 

684 

Telesphorus. 

128 

Leo  I.  (the  Gt.) 

440 

John  V. 

685 

Hyginus. 

138 

Hilary. 

461 

Conon. 

686 

Pius  L 

142 

Simplicius. 

468 

Sergius  I. 

687 

Anicetus. 

157 

Felix  HI. 

483 

John  VI. 

701 

Soter. 

168 

Gelasius  I. 

492 

John  VIL 

705 

Eleutherius. 

177 

Anastasius  IL 

496 

Sisinnius. 

708 

Victor  L 

190 

Symmachus. 

498 

Constantine  I. 

708 

Zephyrinus. 

202 

Hormisdas. 

514 

Gregory  1 1. 

715 

Callistus  L 

218 

John  I. 

523 

Gregory  HI. 

731 

Urban  L 

222 

Felix  IV. 

526 

Zachary. 

741 

Pontian. 

230 

Boniface  II. 

530 

Stephen  IILf 

752 

Anterus. 

235 

John  II. 

532 

Paul  I. 

757 

Fabian. 

236 

Agapitus. 

535 

Constantine  II. 

767 

Cornelius. 

251 

Silverius. 

536 

Stephen  IV. 

768 

Lucius  L 

253 

Vigilius. 

537 

Hadrian  L 

771 

Stephen  I. 

254 

Pelagius  I. 

555 

Leo  HI. 

795 

Sixtus  II. 

257 

John  HI. 

560 

Stephen  V. 

816 

Dionysius. 

259 

Benedict  I. 

574 

Paschal  L 

817 

Felix  I. 

269 

Pelagius  II. 

578 

Eugene  II. 

824 

Eutychian. 

275 

Gregory    I.    (the 

Va  entine. 

827 

Caius. 

283 

Great). 

590 

Gregory  IV. 

827 

Marcellinus. 

296 

Sabinian. 

604 

Sergius  IL 

844 

Marcellus  I. 

307 

Boniface  HI. 

607 

Leo  IV. 

847 

Eusebius 

309 

Boniface  IV. 

608 

Benedict  HI. 

8';5 

Melchiades. 

310 

Deusdedit  I. 

615 

Nicholas   I.   (the  858 

Silvester  I. 

314 

Boniface  V. 

619 

Hadrian  II.  [Gt.)  867 

Mark. 

336 

Honorius  I. 

625 

John  VIII. 

872 

Julius  I. 

337 

Severinus. 

640 

Marinus  I. 

882 

Liberius. 

362 

John  IV. 

640 

Hadrian  HI. 

884 

Felix  IL* 

355 

Theodore  I. 

642 

Stephen  VI. 

885 

Damasus  I. 

366 

Martin  I. 

649 

P'ormosus. 

891 

Siricius. 

,     384 

Eugene  L 

655 

Boniface  VI. 

896 

*  Pope  during  exile  of  Liberius. 


t  Steph.  II.  (752)  died  before  consecr 


429 


430 


LIST   OF    THE   ROMAN   PONTIFFS 


J 


Stephen  VII.  a. 

Romanus. 

Theodore  II. 

John  IX. 

Benedict  IV. 

Leo  V. 

Christopher. 

Sergius  III. 

Anastasius  III. 

Lando. 

John  X. 

Leo  VI. 

Stephen  VIII. 

John  XI. 

Leo  VII. 

Stephen  IX. 

Marinus  'II.* 

Agapitus  II. 

John  XII. 

Leo  VIII. 

Benedict  V. 

John  XIII. 

Benedict  VI. 

Benedict  VII. 

John  XIV. 

John  XV. 

Gregory  V. 

Silvester  II. 

John  XVII. t 

John  XVIII. 

Sergius  IV. 

Benedict  VIII. 

John  XIX. 

Benedict  IX. 

Gregory  VI. 

Clement  II. 

Damasus  II. 

Leo  IX. 

Victor  II. 

Stephen  X. 

Nicholas  II. :J: 

Alexander  II. 

Gregory  VII. 

Victor  III. 

Urban  II. 
Paschal  II. 

Gelasius  II. 

Callistus  II. 

HonoriusII. 

Innocent  II. 
*   Marinus  I.,  II 
+  John  XVI.  (997)  Antipope 
IT  Boniface  VII.  (974),  Antipope. 


).  896 

Coelestinell.A.D 

1 143 

897 

Lucius  II. 

1144 

897 

Eugene  III. 

"45 

898 

Anastasius  IV. 

"53 

900 

Hadrian  IVT   "^ 

ti5C 

903 

AlexanderTII. 

"59 

903 

Lucius  III. 

1181 

904 

Urban  III. 

1185 

.911 

Gregory  VIII. 

1187 

913 

Clement  III. 

1187 

914 

Coelestine  III. 

1191 

928 

Innocent  III. 

"9.8. 

929 

ironoriusTTt. 

1216 

931 

Gregory  IX. 

1227 

936 

Ccelestine  IV. 

1241 

939 

Innocent  IV. 

1243 

943 

'Alexander  IV. 

1254 

946 

Urban  IV. 

1261 

955 

Clement  IV. 

1265 

963 

Gregory  X. 

1271 

964 

Innocent  V. 

1276 

965 

Hadrian  V. 

1276 

973 

JohnXX.(XXL) 

1276 

974 

Nicholas  III. 

1277 

983 

Martin  IV.* 

1281 

985 

Honorius  IV. 

1285 

996 

Nicholas  IV. 

1288 

999 

Coelestine  V. 

1294 

1003 

Boniface  VIII.^l 

1294 

1003 

Benedict  XL 

1303 

1009 

Clement  V. 

1305 

1012 

John  XXII. 

1316 

1024 

Benedict  XIL 

1334 

1033 

Clement  VI. 

1342 

1045 

Innocent  VI. 

1352 

1046 

Urban  V. 

1362 

1048 

Gregory  XL 

1370 

1049 

Urban  VI. 

1378 

1055 

Clement  VII. 

1057 

(Avignon). 

1378 

1059 

Benedict  XIII. 

1061 

(Avignon). 

1394 

1073 

Boniface  IX. 

1389 

1086 

Innocent  VII. 

1404 

1088 

Gregory  XII. 

1406 

1099 

Alexander  V. 

1409 

1118 

John  XXIII. 

1410 

1119 

Martin  V. 

1417 

1 124 

Eugene  IV. 

1431 

1130 

Nicholas  V.  a.d 

.  1447 

Callistus  HI. 

1455 

Pius  11. 

1458 

Paul  II. 

1464 

Sixtus  IV. 

1471 

Innocent  VIII. 

1484 

Alexander  VI. 

1492 

Pius  III. 

1503 

Julius  11. 

1503 

LeoX. 

1513 

Hadrian  VI. 

1522 

Clement  VII, 

1523 

Paul  III. 

1534 

Julius  III. 

1550 

Marcellus  II. 

1555 

Paul  IV. 

1555 

Pius  IV. 

1559 

Pius  V. 

1566 

Gregory  XIII. 

1572 

Sixtus  V. 

1585 

Urban  VII. 

1590 

Gregory  XIV. 

1590 

Innocent  IX. 

1591 

Clement  VIII. 

1592 

Leo  XL 

1605 

Paul  V. 

1605 

Gregory  XV. 

1621 

Urban  VIII. 

1623 

Innocent  X. 

1644 

Alexander  VII. 

1655 

Clement  IX. 

1667       1 

Clement  X. 

1670       \ 

Innocent  XL 

1676       ' 

Alexander  VIII 

.1689 

Innocent  XII. 

1691 

Clement  XL 

1700 

Innocent  XIII. 

1721 

Benedict  XIII. 

1724 

Clement  XII. 

1730 

Benedict  XIV. 

1740 

Clement  XIII. 

1758 

Clement  XIV. 

1769 

Pius  VI. 

1775 

Pius  VIL 

1800 

Leo  XII. 

1823 

Pius  VIII. 

1829 

Gregory  XVI. 
Pius  IX.    s  ^ 

:l^fer 

Leo  XIIL' 

e^  x~ 

w 

were  also  called ;(Martinus)  Martin  11.,  III. 

X  Benedict  X.  (1058),  Antipope. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  247,  254-256 

Adalbero,  174 

Adalbert  of  Bremen,  204 

Adalbert  of  Ivrea,  160,  161 

Adalbert,  St.,  178,  212 

Adelchis,  91,  98 

Adelaide,  Queen  of  Italy,  157, 163 

Aliarta  Paul,  86,  87,  90 

Agatho,  Pope,  66 

Agiltrude,  148,  149 

Agilulf,  51 

Alaric,  2 

Alberic  of  Camerino,  153 

Alberic,  Senator,  156-160 

Albert  of  Austria,  397 

Albigenses,  302-309 

Alcuin,  1^12,  252 

Alexander   II.,  Pope,    203,    205, 

268 
Alexander    III.,   266,    270,   272, 

275,  277-282 
Alexander  IV.,  354,  358 
Alexius  Coinnenus,  298 
Alfonso,  King  of  Castile,  358,  384 
Ambrose,  St.,  of  Milan,  31,  213 
Anacletus  (Anti-pope),  249 
Anastasius,  122,  138 
Anselm  of  Badoagia,  213 
Anselm,  St.,  of  Canterbury,  235, 

253 
Anspert,  212 
Ariald,  213-215 
Arichis,  97,  98 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  258,  259,  261, 

262 


Arnulf  of  Bavaria,  147 

Arriulf  of  Met/c,  70 

Astolph,  King  of  Lombards,  6, 

79,  80,  81-3 
Athanasius,  St.,  29,  33,  59 
Attila,  38,  43 
Augustine,  St.,  3,  31 
Augustus,  2,  13 
Aurelian,  22 
Aurelius,  Marcus,  22,  377 


B 


Bardas,  Csesar,  124-126 
Basil,  St.,  59 
Basil,  Emperor,  127 
Becket,  Thomas,  St.,  269-277 
Benedict  of  Aniane,  115 
Benedict  Levita,  134 
Benedict  III.,  Pope,  122 
Benedict  V.,  162,  163 
Benedict  VI.,  165,  167 
Benedict  VII.,  167 
Benedict  VIII.,  181 
Benedict  IX.,  183-188 
Benedict  XL,  422 
Benedict,  St.,  58,  59,  62,  192 
Bernard,  King  of  Italy,  115,  116 
Bernard,  St.,  246,  248-250,  256- 

260 
Berengar  of  Friuli,  149 
Berengar  of  Ivrea,  157,  163 
Berengar  of  Tours,  198,  203 
Blanche  of  Castile,  376 
Boniface  of  Montferrat,  297 
Boniface  VI.,  Pope,  148 


431 


432 


INDEX 


Boniface   VIII.,   328,  393,  394- 

397,  401-408,  410-420 
Boniface,  St.,  77,  78 
Boniface  of  Tuscany,  188,  200 
Boris,  King  of  Bulgaria,  146 
Brancaleone,  Podesla  of  Rome, 

353,  355 
Brienne,  Walter  de,  299 
Bruce,  King  of  Scots,  423 
Brunhilde,  Queen,  53 
Bruno,  St.,  166 


Caesar,  Julius,  13,  14 

Calixtus  II.,  Pope,  242-244 

Campulus,  95,  loi,  102 

Capet,  Hugh,  174 

Carloman,  brother  of  Pepin,  81 

Carloman,  son  of  Pepin,  89 

Carloman,  son   of   Charles  the 

Bald,  139 
Carloman  of  Bavaria,  141 
Cenci,  221 
Charibert,  ^6 
Charlemagne,  81,89-94,  loi,  102, 

106,  108,  III,  113 
Charles  of  Anjou,  360-365,  366- 

371 
Charles  the  Bald,  119,  120,  132 
Charles  the  Fat,  142 
Charles  Martel,  68,  70,  72 
Charles  of  Naples,  371,  372,  392, 

393,  394 
Charles  of  Valois,  371,  403,  410 
Childeric,  78 
Chrysostom,  St.  John,  35 
Christopher,  85-88 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  24 
Clement  the  Scot,  iii 
Clement,  St.,  19,  21 
Clement  II.,  188 
Clement  1 1 1 .,  Guibert(Anti-pope). 

202,  205,  228,  236 
Clement  IV.,  360,  364 
Clement  V.,  423 
Clovis,  King  of  Franks,  54,  55 

65 
Ccelestine  I.,  Pope,  38 
Coelestine  III.,  286 


Ccelestine  V.,  393,  394 
Colonna,  family,  404 
Colonna,  Sciarra,  405 
Columban,  St.,  59,  77 
Conrad,  Emperor,  182 
Conrad,  son  of  Henry  IV.,  233 
Conrad,   son   of   Frederick   II., 

347,  351,  353 

Conradm,  353,  363,  364 

Constans  II.,  Emperor,  66 

Constantia,  285,  288 

Constantine  the  Great,  27,  33 

Constantine,  Pope,  85,  86 

Constantine  V.,  Emperor,  Icono- 
clast, 79 

Crescenzio  I.,  167,  168 

Crescenzio  II.,  168 

Crescenzio  III.,  178 

Crescenzio  IV.,  181 

Cusanus,  Nicholas  Card,  137 

Cyprian,'  St.,  22,  28,  30 

Cyril,  St.,  of  Alexandria,  29 

D 

Dagobert,  134 
Damascus,  John  of,  67 
Damasus,  Pope,  31,  34,  35 
Damiani,    Peter,    St.,    186,    196, 

198,  210,  213,  214 
Dandolo,  Henry,  Doge,  297,  298 
Dante,  409,  410,  419 
Demetrias,  2 
Desiderius   or   Didier,  King  of 

Lombards,  83,  85-88,  92 
Desiderata,  89 

Dionysius,  St.,  of  Corinth,  19 
Dominic,  St.,  304,  305,  3 16 


Edward  I.  of  England,  381,  389, 

397,  402,  408 
Edmund  of  Sicily,  352,  380 
Elias,  Franciscan,  316,  346 
Enzio,  343,  347,  350 
Eugenius  III.,  Pope,  259 
Eusebii  ^  of  Caesarea,  17,  19 


Flotte,  Peter,  401,  411,  413,  414 
Francis,  St.,  311-317,  33 1 


INDEX 


433 


Frangipani,  240 

Frederick  I.,  Barbarossa,  Em- 
peror, 261-268,  273,  279-281, 
284 

Frederick  II.,  Emperor,  286, 
288,  293-295,  335-342,  343-350 

Formosus,  Pope,  143,  146,  147, 
149 

Fulk  of  Neuilly,  296 

Fulrad,  83 


Gelasius  II.,  Pope,  240 
Genseric,  45 
Gerbert,  .src  Silvester  II. 
Giordano,  Patrician,  258 
Godfrey   of   Lorraine,  196,  200, 

204 
Gratian,  Emperor,  14,  44 
Gratian,  Legist,  274 
Gregory,   St.,   the  Great,  Pope, 

49,  scq.,  60,  61 
Gregory  IL,  5,  67,  70,  72 
Gregory  III.,  72,79 
Gregory  IV.,  118,  119 
Gregory  VI.,  185-187,  188 
Gregory   VII.,   9,   190,  193-196, 

198,    202,   205,    206-225,   227, 

230,  326 
Gregory  IX.,  315,  33^-342,  344- 

347 
Gregory  X.,  365 
Gregory  XIII.,  14 
Guibert,  .sw  Clement  III. 
Guido  of  Milan,  213-215 
Guy  of  Spoleto,  145,  147 

H 

Hadrian  I.,  Pope,  89-91,  scq.^  98, 

99 
Hadrian  II.,  137,  139,  140 
Hadrian  IV.,  260-262,  265,  266 
Hakim  II.,  174 

Hanno  of  Cologne,  204,  2^7,  218 
Henry  the  Fowler,  166 
Henry  II.,  Emperor,  i8r,  1 
Henry  HI.,  187,  196,  200 
Henry   IV.,   203-205,   217,    218, 

220-227,  228-237 


Henry  V.,  236-240,  242-244 
Henry  VI.,  285,  286,  287 
Henry  I.,  King  of  England,  235, 

23H 
Henry  II.,  268-273,  274-279 
Henry  III.,  352,  377,  3«i 
Heribert  of  Milan,  212 
Heiiembald,  214 
Hermenegild,  Martyr,  56 
Hermengard,  Empress,  114,  116 
Hilary  of  Aries,  43 
Hildebrand,  sec  Gregory  VII. 
Hincmar  of  Laon,  139 
Hincmar  of   Rheims,  128,    132, 

133,  139 
Hippolytus,  St.,  19 
Honorius,  Emperor,  37 
Honorius  I.,  Pope,  66 
Honorius  II.  (Anti-pope),  203 
Honorius  HI.,  335 
Hugh,  Abbot  of  Cluny,  192 
Hugh,  King  of  Proyence,  154- 

157 

I 

Ignatius  of  Constantinople,  12s, 

127 
Ingeburga,  317 
Innocent  I.,  Pope,  36 
Innocent  II.,  249,  256 
Innocent  III.,  287-295,  299,  303, 

306-3 10,  3 1 7-323,  324-332 ' 
Innocent  IV.,  347,  351-354 
Ireuc-eus,  St.,  19 
Isidore  of  Seyille,  134 
Isidore,  False,  134-137 

J 
James,  King  of  Arragon,  360 
Jerome,  St.,  2,  17,  31,  59 
Joan,  Pope,  fable  of,  146 
John,  St.,  Evangelist,  18 
John  the  Faster,  34,  51 
John  VIII.,  Pope,  127,  140-143 
John  X.,  150,  153,  154 
^ohn  XII.,  160-162 
•ohn.  King  of  England,  278,  319- 

323 
Joinville,  377 
Justinian,  Emperor,  47 


29 


434 


INDEX 


Lambert  of  Spoleto,  141 
Lanfranc,  253 

Langton,  Stephen,  3r9,  322,  323 
Leo,  vSt.,  the  Great,  Pope,  25,  40, 

41,  $cq. 
Leo  IIL,  Pope,  99,  100-102,  1 15, 

209 
Leo  IV.,  9,  121 
Leo  IX.,  189,  194,  196-198 
Leo     the     Isaurian,     Emperor, 

Iconoclast,  67,  70,  72 
Leo  of  Ravenna,  94 
Leodevigild,  56 
Liutprand,  King  of   Lombards, 

71,  72,  74,  75,  80 
Liutprand  of  Cremona,  150,  161, 

165 
Loria,  Roger,  370-371 
Lothair   I.,   Emperor,  116,   Ti8, 

119,  121 
Lothair    II.    of    Lorraine,    124, 

131,  138 
Lothair  the  Saxon,  249 
Louis  le  Debonnaire,  Emperor, 

98,  114-116,  119,  120 
Louis  II.  of  Italy,  121,  123,  131 
Louis  VII  ,  King  of  France,  284 
Louis  VIII.,  308,  376 
Louis   IX.,  the  Saint,  348.  377- 

380,  3817385,  388 
Louis,  King  of  the  Germans,  120 
Lucius  II.,  Pope,  258 
Lucius  III.,  283 


M 


Manfred,   King  of   Sicily,   352- 

354,  356,  360 
Markvvald,  289 
Marozia,  Senatrix,  150,  1^3,  i  S4- 

157 
Matilda,  226,  230,  233,  237,  240 
Martin,  St.,  of  Tours,  58 
Martin  I.,  Pope,  66 
Martin  IV.,  366,  370 
Mohammed,  7,  68 
Montfort,    Simon  de,  298,  306- 

308  ;  Amaury,  308 


N 


Narses,  37 

Nicholas  I.,  Pope,  122-127,  '32 

Nicholas  II.,  202,  203 

Nicholas  IIL,  366,  368 

Nicholas  IV.,  392 

Nilus,  St.,  172 

Nogaret,  401,  411,  417,  418,  422 

Numa,  13 

O 

Octavian,  sec  John  XII. 

Odo,  Count  of  Paris,  145 

Otho  the  Great,  Emperor,  157, 

]5(>-i67 
Otho  II.,  167,  168 
Otho  IIL,  169-178 
Otho  IV.,  291-295 


Palseologus,  Michael,  Emperor, 

1^^':>^  367 
Paschalis,  95,  loi,  102 
Paschal  I.,  Pope,  116-118 
Paschal  II.,  235,  238-240 
Paul,  St.,  18,  ssg. 
Paul  II.,  Pope,  83-85 
Pedro  I.,  King  of  Arragon,  307- 

308,  319 
Pedro  II.,  360,  366,  367-370 
Pelagius,  heretic,  37,  38,  40 
Pelagius  IL,  Pope,  49 
Pepin,    King   of    France,  6,  76, 

78,  81,  scq.,  84,  85 
Peter  Leone.  237,  sec  Anacletus 
Peter,  St.,  12,  17,  s,eq. 
Pierre  of  Castelnau,  305 
Pietro  della  Vigna,  338,  345,  350 
Philagathus,  Antipope,  171,  \']2 
Philip  Augustus,  King  of  France, 

317,  320,  322,  385 
Philip  the    P'air,  391,   401,  406, 

410-420,  422,  423 
Philip   Emperor,  290-293 
Phocas,  Emperor,  52 
Photius  of  Constantinople,  124- 

129 
Placidia,  Empress,  44 
Plasian,  401,  415 


INDEX 


435 


R 

Kachis,  Lombard,  75,  76,  83 
Haymund  of  Pcnnafoit,  vSt.,  342 
Raymund  VI.  of  Toulouse,  304- 

301S 
Raymond  VII.,  308,  309 
Reccarcd,  Kin;^  (jf  vSpain,  56 
Remigius,  St.,  54 
Richard    I.,   King   of   England, 

284,  286 
Robert  Guiscard,  203,  229,  232 
Roger,  King  of  vSicily,  337 
Roger  Loria,  370,  371 
Rudolph  of  Suabia,  228 
K'udolph  of  Hapsburg,  Emperor, 

351 

S 

Sergius,  son  of  Christopher,  85- 

88 
Sergius  III.,  Pope,  149,  150,  152 
Sergius  of  Ravenna,  94 
Silvester  I.,  Pope,  27 
Silvester  II.,  Gerbert,   170,  171- 

17« 
Silvester  III.,  183-187 
Simon  de  Montfort,  298,  306-308 
Siricius,  Pope,  209 
Stephen  II.,  Pope,  79,  80,  .srt;., 

«4 
Stephen  III.,  86-88 
Stephen  VI.,  T48 
Stephen  IX.,  201 
Stephen,  St.,  King  of  Hungarv, 

182 
Stephania,  176-178 
Suger,  Abbot,  260,  375 
Symmachus,  Pope,  97 


T 


Tertullian,  1 1 
Theodebert,  S3 


Theodora,  Senatrix,  150-153 
Theodore  of  Tarsus,  53 
Theodoric,  King  of  Italy,  47 
Theodosius,  ICmperor,  14 
Theophano,  Empress,  170,  171 
Theophylact,  boy  Bishop,  158 
Theophylact,  Senator,  144,  150 
Theutberga,  130 
Thomas  Aquinas,  St.,  386,  388 
Thorismund,  42 
Totila,  King  of  Goths,  48 
Toto,  8  s,  86 


Ulfilas,  ^:^ 

Urban  II.,  Pope,  232-235 
Urban  IV.,  358,  36'i 
Valentinian  III.,  Emperor,  44 
Victor  II.,  Pope,  200 
Victor  III.,  229.  232 
Vigilius,  Pope,  47 
Viilehardouin,  296 
V'italian,  Pope,  252 
Vitiges,  King  of  Italy,  154 


\\^ 


Wala,  Monk,  115,  118 

Waldo,  Peter,  283 

Waldrada,  124 

Warnehar,  82 

William  of  Aquitainc,  192 

William  the  Conqueror,  268 

William,  Prince  of  Sicilv.  286 


Zachary,  Pope,  75,  s,cq.,  77,  79 
1    Zephyrinus,  12 
Zianij  Doge,  278-280 


Ub6  ©resbam  press, 

UNWIN  BROTHERS,    LIMITED, 
WOKING  AND  LONDON. 


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